Is this a dream?

Lately both my older children have asked me if this reality we are living is a dream or a movie. It made me remember when I was a child and wondered if I was just in a very long dream and would wake up soon. Dreams were so vivid and they felt so real... it was only upon waking that you realize that none of it was true. Though as we get older we realize that our dreams ARE trying to tell us something... at least sometimes.

I remember having a wonderful dream once about my mother arriving home from work with her car packed full of grocery bags. I could see all the wonderful things in the bag and I plotted about what I might get into first. It was the end of the day and I awoke from a nap to greet my mom and help her carry in the groceries. I was happy to help bring those bags in... there was a great variety of food in those bags and things we never could afford. Then I was rudely awakened by a sibling informing "Mom was home" but reality was so different from my dream. There were no grocery bags to be brought in and I was so disappointed. The feeling and anticipation was so real that the let down was real as well.

When my parents got divorced and my mom was raising us alone... struggling to keep food on the table and the heat on while she worked and went to school I once had a thought that maybe this WAS a dream and a bad dream at that. Maybe I would wake up and be very relieved. My first existential thought. I am not sure how old I was ... maybe 7 or 8.

So when my kids started asking me if this reality, this moment in time was real or a dream...I found myself reassuring them that yes this life was real. And also wondering what they were thinking... were they relieved or disappointed?

When watching movies my son always asks whether what we are watching is real. Sometimes the answer is more difficult than yes or no. "Yes this once happened." "These people were alive at one time." No Superman is a cartoon character. He is not flying around Earth saving people except in our imaginations." These answers seem to placate him. He knows that the Buzz Lightyear character we see at Disney World is just someone dressing up in a costume. At least he is close to knowing that. But then he is also grilling me about the tooth fairy too. He doesn't push too hard cause then where woulds the money come from? He is one smart boy.

My daughter on the other hand, asked me if this life we are living is a movie. She is literally comparing us to Cinderella or Alladin. And the thing is... she seems these characters at Disney and they look very very real to her. So if we can see these "real" princesses at Disney and then in a movie... maybe there are people watching us.

I assure her that we are not a movie.. and if we were we would bomb at the box office cause nothing exciting happens around here. Well, other than losing teeth and wondering why the tooth fairy fails to deliver over and over again. Or losing a battle with the scissors and having to have your hair cut to its shortest length ever. These are the little dramas that I wish were only only nightmares in our lives but I know that as the kids grow... they will seem dreamlike and I will cherish each memory... I hope they do too.

LifeKeys

I began an 8 week course at church on Wednesday nights called LifeKeys. My pastor is leading it and it is a wonderful outlet for me. I get out of the house and get to spend time with people I really like and only see once a week at church.

LifeKeys is kid of similar to What Color is Your Parachute. You might remember that book. I read it years ago as I was trying to discover who I was and where I might best use my talents. LifeKeys is different is that it really is focused on identifying the gifts that God gave you and how you might use them for the betterment of the Kingdom of God.

The first working session we had to identify our Life Gifts... the things we do well, come naturally and are enjoyable to us. We had to make a distinction between what we do well but do not enjoy or that comes at an expense to our lives whether that is stress, dampening of the spirit and other negatives. There were six types of Life Gifts... you may find yourself having strengths in a number of them or primarily in one or two. The categories are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional.

Now I have always felt myself to be an introvert. I like to be alone. I love quiet. Social settings always made me anxious. (Some good medication has helped with that one.) But I did find that I was heavily social. My highest scores were in the Social category with three additional gifts in Artistic.

As a college student I majored in English. Reading and analyzing literature fed my introverted self. It fit. I was a Resident Assistant. I was in charge of a floor of women during my senior year. After what campus security called a "donnybrook" on my floor by the Irish officer that responded to it the Dean of Students asked if I had ever thought of being a counselor. What? No, never. I thought nothing of her comment for years.

Eventually I did enter the mental health profession. I felt called by God in the work I did at Gould Farm. I lived in an intentional community with people coping and striving with mental illness. I eventually became Clinical Coordinator of the program structured around more independence for residents. And because God was so present there I made the decision to go to Seminary so I might understand how to mesh the spiritual and the psychiatric.

During my four years at Vanderbilt Divinity School I studied pastoral counseling, did a number of units in Clinical Pastoral Education at the VA Hospital. I was both a part time Chaplain intern during my first year and a full time Chaplain Resident on the Psychiatric ward during my final year.

I tell you all this because here comes the list of my Life Gifts. I wanted to take this course because I need to start thinking about what i am going to do with my time once the kids are in school. I feel a bit disconnected from what I thought God wanted me to do with my life. It was so clear before I had children and seems so far away now. So taking the time to reassess is important to me. Here is the list:

• understand and counseling others
• listening and facilitating
• evaluating people's character
• being empathetic and tactful
• being of service
• conversing and informing
• teaching
• photography/graphic arts
• creative expression through color
• working with others
• music

As I said, there are a couple at the end of the list which are my artistic gifts. They correspond to my hobbies and interests outside work. But the others are most definitely gifts that have brought me the most fulfillment in work setting and are the way I approach most of my life.

This week we are looking at spiritual gifts... tonight in fact. But I will not be able to attend because Doc has late clinic hours tonight. I guess i will do the work myself and see what i come up with.

What? Huh? What did you say?

I have never repeated myself more than I have in the last two weeks. My four year old has been driving me crazy. She would ask me a question and then not wait to hear the answer. Or ask it again while I was answering her. I could not figure what was going on. But I was thinking it was behavioral. She and I have been clashing a lot. It has made me very upset to think that this is the status quo of our relationship and she is only four. It felt like the only time she heard me was when i was yelling... which I would do after she repeated herself 3 times and did not hear my response once.

So I set about trying to figure out how to relate to her differently, as well as to understand her better. I ordered a couple books off Amazon about the strong willed child. I spoke with family and friends and the doctor. The pediatrician said this was all normal and that same sex parents and children are bound to clash and just wait til she is 12. (great) I asked him about Avery's ears because she has had a number of ear infections including double ear infections just last week. He told me they were clear.

After some observation we wondered if maybe she wasn't hearing us. It was an on and off thing and depended on the setting. But I could be 4 feet away from her sometimes and call her name repeatedly and she would not respond. So I made an appointment with the audiologist at the ENT office where she and our oldest son had their tubes done a couple years ago. And it seems she has fluid in her ears again or still.

Her pediatrician counted 6-7 ear infections in the last year which is right on the cusp for new tubes. Today we go to see the ENT himself. It looks like tubes are in her future. But the icing is that maybe, just maybe our relationsip will shift dramatically or a smidgen anyway.