Dreams and Secret Doors

I'm reading a book which has a discussion of the author's recurring dream, and how that dream, she felt, was trying to give her clues about unresolved issues in her life. In her case, she was on a spiritual quest, but some of the things she has to say about her dream hit home with me.

For years and years, I had a recurring dream as well. Mine was never the exact same from one dream to the next, but it always entailed a house I was living in, and a secret door that would reveal an entirely different house, always bigger and more interesting than the one I left behind. There was always shock to find that this other house had been there all the time. I would suddenly discover a door, like in an attic or a deep closet, open it and there would be this other place. It was a little frightening at times, gathering the courage to open the secret door, and I was always apprehensive about entering the new house. Sometimes this new house came complete with an opulent bathroom, or some kind of inventive kitchen arrangement. I really have not thought about this dream in quite some time because it stopped a few years ago. But reading this author's description of her dream and how she felt it was a roadblock in her way, keeping her from finding her true calling -- or as she so succinctly put it: "My sense was that I'd begun to play with my impressive collection of mental blocks, bumping into some sort of psychological barrier to inner peace."

It was this line that brought my own recurring dream back to me. I had never really considered the dream premonitory. I never was one to put much stock in prophetic dreams. I just figured it was brain activity, based on something I'd seen on HGTV or something equally as mundane. But it now seems to me that this dream was trying to convince me of the value of opening new doors, of withering my fear of change, of taking the step through that door to another place.

When my 34-year marriage ended, over and above the sense of loss and grief was this anger I couldn't shake of having wasted all those years. I couldn't seem to leap over that feeling of waste. In fact, that feeling continued within me long after the day in court came and went, long after I had quit grieving the loss of the marriage. It's only been in the last year or so that I've begun to find some peace with that sense of waste, forgiving myself for making unwise choices, and actually feeling gratitude toward my ex-husband for shaking off the inertia that had become us, of finally reaching out for something new and better, and in doing so, forcing me to go along, whether I wanted to or not. Once the distance between that old life and the new one, became greater, I began to be able to admit that I had long suppressed feeling of dissatisfaction, a suppression borne of necessity because I had, after all, chosen the life I was leading, and chosen it with knowing doubt that I was doing the right thing from the very beginning. There was always this indescribable hunger that ached inside my soul, this need for some deeper reason for living than what I felt was my reality. The sense of loneliness and isolation that those feeling brought was too unbearable, and I worked hard throughout the years, to erase negative thoughts about my life and marriage, but it was a struggle that took its toll on me, too.

I recognize that life is not a bowl of the proverbial cherries. But I don't think marriage is supposed to be such a continuous struggle, for years on end, to convince yourself that your life is all you want it to be, or that you're happy with all the decisions you made to get you where you are. I think it's OK to finally admit you might have had poor judgment, might have stripped yourself of other chances, might have done better if you'd chosen a different path. It doesn't mean you are disloyal to the good things that may have come out of those bad decisions. It doesn't mean you love your children any less, or regret the holidays, the birthdays, the extensions of inlaws and mutual friendships. But I think it's never too late to start over either, to grab hold of that handle, open that new door, and step on through.

I thought I would work on the manuscript I brought along with me on this trip. I thought it would be a good time to get away from the telephone and the hundreds of other distractions I find around home to keep me from writing. I knew I would probably spend some quiet time in the hotel room while my SO was off working his convention. Instead, I've been having a hard time putting down this book written by an author who has touched me in ways she probably never intended. Enlightenment often comes to us serendipitously. We just have to open ourselves to it, and be grateful that it's come at all.

One of the best things that ever happened to me in life was when I learned to read. I immediately fell in love with books. It's a love affair that has continued unabated ever since.

Onward ....