Birthday dream musings

I'm 25 today and with that comes reflection. Some of this will deal with drepression, some with my history and some with my hopes for the future.

Birthdays for me are normally pretty crappy times. Mom forgets, or celebrates by giving me a toonie sometimes in the general week of my birthday, and often people are busy - esp as it tends to fall around many religious holidays. Normally there is no one to make me a cake and since my family sort of fell to pieces, if i want to celebrate in any way, I have to do all teh arranging and everything. Often I found myself making my birthday around other people - who ate what, liked whom, what would make it so that people wanted to be around me on my birthday.

This year I found myself doing something different. I was almost whine free (thanks shosh for being there when I needed to bitch about the safety video this morning. It was graphic enough to distrub me! But once you and I talked, I was able to get over it and move on with my day so once again, thanks). Instead of getting upset about the fact no one made me a cake I thought about it. I feel bad making my own birthday cake, partially because I am the baker so I guess people worry about making me one, but also in that because i bake so often, I feel like the expectation is that I should not go to the store and buy a cake that someone else made. So this year I did something different. I didnt make anything, but I did buy something that i think felt good. I bought myself an ice cream pizza (lots of leftovers too) - since I dont make ice cream!

This year, I asked for what i wanted. I want a couple seconds of peoples time to hear good wishes and have people mean them. And thanks to a very kind internet forum, every time I came online today my inbox was filled with them! It made me feel special without relying on the people I have been sued to relying on. I will admit, I also gave away a number of things online today, simply because it made me happy to do so.

And even though I spent my birthday alone, I feel good about it - I bought myself a dinner out (nothing too special but better than cooking for just me), relaxed with a project that was just for me and just enjoyed spending the time. No expectation, no fighting, no stress, nothing. I like this version better

And yes, I think the meds help because instead of waking up full of dread and anxiety, I started my day differently and that let me to continue in a better mood instead of spiraling down. But I also think that just because I came at the event from a different place, it also helped alot. I feel as if my perspective is changing and I think that has to be a good thing.

In fact, the only thing I miss is Birthday Sex - something i can easily rectify when my period and menstrual cramps get a bit better LOL.

I have been thinking more and more about recording some of my dreams and the idea is appealing to me. This is last nights

I dreamt I was dating a girl. We had been together for a while, the relationship was comfortable but flat. But I was happy with her. Secretly though, I was also in love with this guy (stop laughing now k?). He got sick, landed in the hospital, and that was enough to give me panic attacks that led me to an anti anxiety med. I was really worried as it was some kind of infection and he went unconscious in front of me before taking him to the hospital.

In his hospital room, he bitched me out for taking the pills (not know that I had had to take him due to my stress over him) as I was already close to the upper limit on what one can take in anti-crazy meds, thanks to my SSRI's and if my therapist found out i was needing even more, I could face time in a mental hospital myself. he was worried about me.

At this point, a friend pulled me out of his room and told me to pull myself together. Every knew I was in love with him, but I was stressing him out and I was only going to get hurt and hurt my girlfriend at the same time. I was told to get over myself, take more meds, and figure it out.

He recovered and I went to work (at my second job which was working with older children with severe learning imparements, who could barely read. That day we were working on recognizing alphabet letters). My sister covered for my class for about an hour (she worked there as well) so that I could go to my therapist.

Instead I ran into this guy, and somehow we ended up realizing the feeling was mutual, and making out. I remember thinking in my dream that this is not how life isnt supposed to work. Life isnt supposed to make you feel happy and full of wonder, and that if this were the real world, not teh dream one, I should still be with the girl out of expectation and comfort.

I go back and finish up with my class, and we were working on a project that had alot of color to it. He picks me up at the end of the school day and my sister warns me that if i am going to break this grils heart, i should at least do it in person before anyone else does it for me. So together we go to her place so i can talk to her, and all goes well.

Then we go to my place and have some dinner, make out some more and again i remember thinking that this has to be a dream since life still doesnt work like this. Actually I remember having a lot of very important thoughts about the dream world vs the real world and now i remember very few of them.

The next morning I am driving my school bus, however, as my regular bus is in for service, I am left driving a 100% manual model. In my dream, this is similar to one of those sleds that are made of a sheet of plastic - magic carpets i think they are called. The children are to bard the bus and sit behind me, and i am to move us foreward by pushing on the ground with my hands and feet. It is very hard to move the vehicle.

I take the bust and pick up kids on my normal route. (This is a route I have now driven in a few dreams, that does not relate in any way to my normal route. It has about 6 stops, one of which I normally forget and have trouble finding when I do remember it. Incidentally I have been in this students house in another dream, though i no longer remember why, I do remember a number of the details of the inside of the house). I have taken the new boy, and my sister (who in a pervious dream I had filled out a form for her getting her permission to ride with me). As in previous dreams, often I do not have to get the bus to the first stop, but ride in the second or third seat back and apply the breaks once we arrive at the stop. This parent has seen me do this before and often worries about this - today I was a little late getting to the breaks as I was making out.

Driving the bus manually is very difficult, and I am unable to move very fast at all. I miss that one students house as I forget it and I have trouble finding a number of my turns and often have to reroute the bus. However I do eventually make it to the school.

At this point, I have some time between routes so I go to the gym, which also marks the end of my dream.

Yes I know, its weird.