It's probably not on anyone's side, but I feel the slippage of time so acutely lately, I feel it warrants a post.
Since Kona, I feel like time has acclerated and I simply am not running fast enough to get everything done that I WANT to get done in the amount of time I've been allotted--both in each 24 hour period and also in my LIFE.
My bucket list is huge. It grows a little longer every time I pluck a white hair, and since each day I have more white hair... while you get the idea. It's like I can see the landslide... slipping slipping....
and I want to do it all before age conquers me.
Does anyone else experience this? My heart starts pounding when I think about it. The pressure. The pressure! I cannot sit on my ass or I might miss out on -- everything !
The problem is that I am not a solo unit. I can't scratch things off the MUST DO list when I have three little rugrats that rely on my placement HERE, and a husband who is as confined as me by job and kids and dogs and taking out the trash.
I had a dream last night that I was deep within the earth. I had crawled down there through this tunnel, and the deeper I crawled the harder I knew it would be to get out, but I did so anyway. it was like a compulsion. Finally I hit the bottom, and then realized I needed to start the journey back--to get air, and light. To be free again. The tunnel, as I climbed UP UP UP was dark and cold and wet. And then there was dirty clothing clogging the tunnel. At first I went by the clothing and thought... ugh, I'm going to have to go back to get that because it needs to be washed... but I kept going anyway. Then the clothing got to be so dense that I couldn't crawl past it .So I started pushing it up, up up... and it gathered and got harder and harder to push. There was so much of it and I was so far from the surface! It was weighing me down and then it began to wrap around me, suffocating me.
Then I woke up.
So there you have it.
I can't get to the top. I can't conquer the bucket list and I'm running out of air. I'm in a dark tunnel and suffocating on laundry. The brain frames dilemmas so well, doesn't it?
16 comments:
amen.
did you really have that dream?
very symbolic.
@Ange. I really and truly did. The feeling and weight of the dirty clothing clogging the tunnel was so intense I woke in a sweat.
Funny, huh? And at first I was like, Wow. Weird dream. And then I thought about it and could not believe how perfectly my brain had symbolized my fears.
thank you for sharing.. yes it does feel like time slips away too quickly... so quickly that sometimes I forget to live in the moment, to enjoy the moment....
love reading your blog!
I think the moral of the dream is that we all need to hire maids. ;) Suffocating under laundry... I can relate! Though I can imagine yours is even worse than mine given you have 3 kids and live where you have to layer.
Yes, I have been feeling similarly this week, though laundry applies to me only as a symbol (everyone does his own laundry here and my son's gets done by my husband). Yes, age has been weighing on me not in terms of looks but in terms of physical ability/fitness. Grr, why didn't I start running for competition in my 20s???
I agree with others: what an incredible (and incredibly revealing) dream.
My former therapist told me that dreams (especially nightmares) were the means by which your unconscious works through debris -- the scary ones symptomatize the way in which the unconscious hasn't found a solution. But it will keep working through your anxiety and provide you with an answer soon enough.
In the meantime, you need a massage, a margarita, and a laundry fairy. ASAP.
I don't have children, but with two of us runners in the household, the laundry is CRAZY! I can't imagine how it would be w/ a couple of rugrats :)
Wish I had answers, but I agree w/ the others: Gotta find a way to live in the moment. Even if it's while doing laundry.
Obviously the meaning of your dream is you need to swim... specifically swim in a swim meet with challenging events that you can cross off your bucket list. You also need to work on hypoxic underwater training. The more you swim like this, the better you can hold your breath and get past that mountain of laundry to FREEDOM. That's my theory anyways.....
Dang, last week I had that unconquerable feeling of I can they everything done. Highly anxious. You put a lot of my feelings into words. Good luck managing it all. And take some deep breaths.
I often get that overwhelming/sinking/panicky feeling of having too much to do...and then I go running.
I feel and hear "my clock" ticking loudly. I'm so driven to PRs right now because the clock tics louder and louder.... tic toc tic toc tic toc
gotta go for that PR while I can and I keep moving the bar. I often wonder what ever WILL I do when the PRs have passed me by ?????
thankfully, I'm not having nightmares yet.
I think as parents we see the passage of time so much more acutely than before having kids. Every day, it's made manifest before us. And also, every day the amount of things we *want* to accomplish lies beside the amount of things we actually *get* accomplished. Sometimes the gap feels very wide. On those days, I take a deep breath and remind myself that all I really need to do is what's in front of me, right now. The rest will sort itself out.
Doesn't it drive you crazy when people say they're bored? How is that possible? So much to do...
I've been thinking of your post, and wanted to share a poem with you that I think answers the question. My post is at: http://ironmom.blogspot.com/2011/12/countdown-to-ironman-week-29-i-have.html
This time of the year is SO insanely busy! Interesting dream/nightmare though...always a good read, Mary! :)
haha, hire a maid! (if it were that easy, I know, I know).
So scary, I'm claustrophobic. Mamma mia! I'm terrified of flying I haven't flown for the last 15 years but I often have dreams of being in a plane, I wake up so relieved that it's only a dream (or a nightmare I should say). I'm following you from Rome, Italy!
I'm not sure conquering the bucket list would be the right way to look at it. Maybe making sure you can say you're always targeting something? I don't think the personality of people who consider themselves type-A would ever sit back and say, 'damn... I'm done. I've got nothing more I want to accomplish'. Also, what was it you wrote the other day about being a coach... 'the road to X is not, despite what you once thought, the original PLAN that was made'.
Thanks, btw, for the comment you left about the inter-library loans. I'd forgotten about them. My girls are 8 and (almost)6. What worries me more than their music rotting my brain is when they start dancing around the house to it like they are on stage at a britney spears concert. Shoot me now.
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