All posts by Dona

My Mother, My Self — Part 1

Dreams, Wrestling, ,
My mother and me 1965
My mother and me 1965

Last night I dreamed I was going to be the 103 lb wrestler for my son’s wrestling team in a tournament. For some reason (the snows perhaps) the rules of who could wrestle for the team were relaxed so that the parent of a wrestler could fill in for another wrestler. Even in the dream I must have realized how wrong this was — and not only because it’s been 10 years since I was 103 lbs — because I reasoned with myself that I was just a filler. There was no way I’d win the match.

Anyway as I was getting ready to leave with Dean and Andrew, my mom walked into the room and said she was going to go too — that she’d missed so many wrestling meets this year.

It is not unusual for my mom to pop up in a dream. When I dream of being at home (meaning my current home) the house is often the house in which I grew up and my mom is always there. She’s often in dreams in which I dream of my husband and children.

I think I’ve known this for a long time, but never wanted to admit it, but when my mom is in those dreams she is me. Even if I am in the dream, I think my mother represents me. She’s usually doing the right thing, while the other me is goofing around or as in last night’s dream, trying to get the scale to work while everyone is waiting in the car to go to the tournament. In the dream from last night she made the decision to not make dinner, but to pick it up on the way — and if I need to cut weight could eat the sandwich after weighing in.

I think she is the authority figure in the dreams (I’ll write more about how I perceive authority figures in my life in a later post) but I don’t seem to have a problem with that — in dreams.

Today is my mom’s birthday. I’m glad she was going to be there to watch me wrestle, but luckily for the team and me, I woke up before I even got to the tournament.

[And just so you know — Mom’s alive and well and even on Facebook]

I have issues: Part 4 — Fear of Annoying People

Social Media, , , , , ,

I hate to be a bother. I hate to annoy people. I get worked up about possibly saying the wrong thing to someone at a party and worry about it the next day, and beyond. I don’t know how normal this is. I don’t normally talk about it, but I know it is the root of a few of my character flaws, like why I usually wait for people to call me, rarely initiate things with friends and why I dislike asking for help of any kind. I don’t want to bother them if they are in the middle of something. I don’t want to annoy them with my request. I don’t run my air conditioner if I don’t absolutely have to because a neighbor complained that it was loud — I wouldn’t want to bother her in her quietly air conditioned house. I just want to live my life and not be a bother to anyone.

Until the past couple of years this issue only manifested itself in real life, but lately I’ve been more conscious of feeling this way about my online interactions. For instance, when I first became active in Facebook I had all sorts of things streaming on my “wall”. I had my twitter feed and my friendfeed sent to my Facebook wall. I also allowed whatever app I was using on Facebook to be sent to my wall. These notices were then sent to my Facebook friends’ newsfeeds and I annoyed at least one person enough that he deleted me from his friends. When I asked him about it he suggested I join twitter if I wanted to update my status as often as I seemed to be updating it. I explained that it was twitter that was doing it.

Anyway, after that I tried to limit what was posted to my wall. I made a few mistakes, but seemed to be doing fine. Lately, however, a number of people are posting status reports that they are annoyed by other people’s wall posts. Of course (another of my issues is thinking that I’m to blame for everything) I assumed they were talking about my wall posts. Was my app/external site usage being seen by my followers and I didn’t know it? I searched the settings and double checked that what I was doing on Facebook was not annoying anyone. Not bothering them.

And then there is this blog. The theme or the plugins or the widgets is causing problems with commenting and viewing. I’ve spent entire days troubleshooting and have not found an answer.

This is one issue that is not going to be fixed by writing a post about it. I expect that I’ll have this issue until the day I die. I imagine it is part of a larger issue.

So if I annoy you in real life or on Facebook or on Twitter or on my blog, please accept my apologies. I really don’t do it on purpose.

17 Airedale Drive

Memories, , , ,

17 Airedale Dr
Horsforth, Leeds
LS18 5ED
UK

I don’t know how many times I wrote that address on letters and packages nor how many times getting a letter or package from that address made me very happy. Hundreds probably. I do know, however, that I’ll never write it on a letter again nor will I ever receive a letter from that address. (Although, in all honesty, it has been years since I did send a letter to 17 Airedale Drive.)

17 Airedale Drive in 1974
17 Airedale Drive in 1974

You see, it has been sold, or I’m fairly certain it has been sold. Yes, a Google search confirms it has been sold. I suspected as much when I received Jeremy’s Christmas letter this year and saw that Pat, his mother, moved into his house after a 6 month stay in a hospital.

Jeremy and his family lived at 17 Airedale Drive when I first met them. 17 Airedale Drive was where I stayed during my visits to England between 1974 and 1979. I have a lot of wonderful memories of that house with its beautiful rose garden in front and the front door with the stained glass window. I remember sharing Jeremy’s room with Sue and, on another visit sleeping in the tiny bedroom in front. I remember the kitchen with the tiny pass-through door to the dining room and the front lounge area with the comfy furniture. I remember the back garden where I had my first bread, cheese and wine meal.

So today I found myself Googling 17 Airedale Drive to see if it had been sold and saw that Google Street View was implemented along Airedale Drive. I’d been waiting for this — it was not in place when I wrote my entry about Google Street View in my neighborhood. I wanted to see what 17 Airedale Drive looked like now.

17 Airedale Drive in 2009
17 Airedale Drive in 2009

I sort of wish I hadn’t though. Jack’s roses are gone. A side addition was built — probably to expand the kitchen. But perhaps that was there in 2002 when we visited Pat. The back garden looks nice though — but the mural Jeremy painted on the garage doors is gone.

So someone else is living at 17 Airedale Drive. Someone is making their own memories in that house. Do they, I wonder, ever stop and think about the memories already made there? Probably not. And that’s okay.