Last nights dream has left my mood low, but equally has given me some clarity.
The first part of the dream I had visited a seaside town I haven’t been to since I was much younger. All the routes I previously knew had changed due to building works and development.
I found myself at a psychic and craft fair.
I wondered round aimlessly finding very little of interest so returned to my car getting lost numerous times on route.
When I arrived at the car my daughter was there. She wanted to see the fair herself.
I walked half way with her but needed to get back as my parking ticket was going to expire.
I tried to give her directions but realised they were wrong. She kept telling me that she would be fine. But I was so scared she would get lost with my bad instruction.
When I returned to the car, there was an odd man parked next to me.
His partners car had broken down and as mine was an earlier model he asked if he could jumpstart from my vehicle.
I felt very pressured to help him whilst equally distracted to my daughters journey.
I popped the bonnet and the man was straight under it tinkering away.
I didn’t trust him so got out of the car to see what he was doing. But he kept ushering me back.
He said he was missing a piece and took my purse without asking to search. In the process he looked though my receipts, quoting where my money had been spent and then continued to count out how much cash was in my purse.
I got angry and shouted at him that it was no concern to him and to mind his own business.
He shushed me and kept belittling me that I needed to be ready for when he needed me to start the car.
When the time came I realised I was on a bike.
< yes quite bonkers I know – but its a dream!>
I was frantically trying to figure out how I could prop the bike up so I could peddle without traveling any distance as I didn’t want to leave my belongings with this stranger. But, instead I was forced instead of the circles I was trying to travel, to ride a lap of the town and up and down the multistory carpark.
My mind conflicted between my own stuff and my missing daughters, I woke with a start and feeling very unsettled.
But my dreams of torment didn’t end there as I drifted back to sleep.
When I was in my teens, my mum moved out of the family home.
To be honest she should have done it years before as she was so very unhappy with the life she had with my dad.
He was a very independent man with little care to the effect his absences would have on the family.
He missed so many life events whilst my sister and I grew up. So when he retired my mum thought things would change. But they didn’t. – Anyway I digress.
The house my mum moved to was a place I never felt at home.
For starters, I never actually lived there for any period, I just came for visits. But to me the house never felt homely.
Just the simple dream of my mums for a colour coordinated living space created a place I found cold. It felt too much like a show home compared to the mismatched hand-me-down home that was all she could create whilst with my dad.
So anyway, back to the dream.
I was who I am now, and I was back visiting my mums as it was then. When I arrived my sister was home and her old friend was visiting. And I remember observing how at home the friend felt at the meal table, helping herself to the food and wine. Chatting away with my family, whilst I sat in silence fighting the inner turmoil.
I had asked to visit as my kids were leaving for Uni and I was upset.
I needed my mums shoulder to cry on.
I’d come armed with 2 bottles of a wine that I’d newly discovered. One my husband and I have enjoyed together.I
kept finding myself in the pudding isle of a supermarket. Unable to make a decision on which desert would be best. Secretly wanting to buy a large chocolate fudge cake I could consume myself to make myself feel less miserable.
The meal at mums was a paella type sauce, strong with a very hot chorizo mixed with Orzo pasta. Both elements of the meal were not how she had cooked when living at the family home and I poked at my meal finding it unfamiliar and strange. Just highlighting how disconnected I felt in the place.
I asked my mum if she was enjoying the wine I had bought and she confessed that she thought my bottle foul and cheap like acid, so had swapped out to the good stuff. Another notch marked of disconnection.
(The comedy in this is my mum was renowned for her taste of cheap french wines and 1 euro bottles)
After the meal I offered to help with the cleaning up, but my sister told me that it was something she did as she knew it made my mum happy, eger to earn her own brownie points whilst preventing me from expressing my thanks for including me in their home for the evening.
So instead sat myself on the sofa waiting to chat, only to realise that the sofa I had sat myself was in a completely different location to that the others were settling into. When I made it to that room they were all engrossed in the TV leaving me to my bottle in the corner and regrets of not picking up the pudding as I had originally planned.
I just wanted to go home.
But the thought of going to a place that was empty filled me with dread.
I knew my husband would not be home and my kids already gone.
I woke again feeling very lost and lonely.
And as I ruminated on the dreams it occurred to me what I really dread.
A feeling of not being home.
After my mum and sister moved out, the house I had once loved turned to a place that felt cold and empty.
My dads relationship with me broke down as he blamed me for encouraging the family to split, whilst I made no secret of how he had taken everything for granted.
On leaving the family home I first lived in a house share and then into a flat with the kids dad.
I tried so hard to recreate the warm mismatched home I had previously loved. But we were hardly ever home.
We then moved 200 miles north.
Again I desperately tried to make our space homely but things were missing including a feeling of being included as I had no family or friends to turn to.
Our next stop was above my shop. I spent little time making it a home as the business always had to take priority and it housed the breakdown of my own first marriage.
And to where we are now. I love the location and my garden is finally starting to take the form that I imagined.
But on moving in, a shared space with my new minimalist husband, I created the colour matched environment I had previously despised.
As time went on I encouraged my husband to use the space to express himself.
An expression he had been prohibited from sharing in his previous relationships.
Hence our wall full of Star Trek insignia and cast autographs. Our cabinets filled with Dalek, Cybermen and all things SciFi.
And whilst I love that he is now in a home where he could be himself, there was not much me to start.
Over the years of living here I have slowly filled the house with clutter and crafting supplies. Of the never end in project I’ve made and my large collection of shoes.
And of memories of my little family as they grew into the amazing young adults they have become.
And whilst I love it, I don’t feel its really showing me. Its been more like me lodging in a place that I’ve encouraged others to make their roots. A place where I’ve fought to find out who I really am now the painted mask of perfection is no longer needed.
So when the kids leave I had plans of redecorating.
The kitchen to a pumpkin paradise and then the lounge, an eclectic Victorian spooky parlour.
And as both the kids had mentioned how they were bored with their rooms. So I was going to surprise them by updating their spaces too.
But from my dream it dawned on me. If I make all these changes will it even feel like home to them any more? Or will they feel strangers on their return?
And without them here, in my life, like I have enjoyed for almost 20 years, will this place even feel like I am home, without two of my favourite people in the whole world?
How do I find me with such a large space that had previously been filled with the role of mum?