With Sleep Comes Odd Dreams

We had an OK weekend. Had fabulous dinner party for 6 (including us) on Saturday night. Neither Tom nor I cooked and the food was fabulous. The dinner was for two of Tom's study partners at Villanova and their spouses. The daughter of one of Tom's study partners cooked with a friend of hers from school. She's going to school to be a chef at Drexel University (our alma mater). Her friend was pre-med at Drexel, but works in a kitchen. Needless to say, our kitchen got used to the fullest. All plates were used. Many gadgets were used, especially my 14-year-old KitchenAid mixer. Here was the menu (Rachel created the menu and sent to us a month ago):

• Pre-appetizer (I can't spell the French word for this. It sounds amoosing, LOL): cantelope with a bit of cream sauce wrapped in proscuitto with a mint leaf on top.
• Appetizer (two appetizers, three of each) - 1. tomato and mozzarella salad with pesto sauce between layers with balsamic vinegar on top. 2. crab salad in cylindrical shape - bottom layer was avocado with lime juice, middle layer of pico de gallo, top layer of crab meat in a cream sauce with roasted red and yellow pepper puree on each side of plate.
• Entree (two entrees, three of each) - 1. pan seared tilapia, mushroom risotto, steamed asparagus. 2. pan grilled filet mignon with au jus, mashed potatoes made with purple fingerling potatoes and roasted garlic, and sauteed spinach.
• Dessert - homemade tiramisu

Everyone loved the food, the house, and it was nice to talk to some of the people at this dinner without keeping an eye on our kids (we all had sitters).

Here's where the deep part of the post comes in. I got some good sleep this weekend which led to actually having dreams, or at least remembering them. I had one that really stuck in my mind. I only remember a piece, but it was very strange. I quite believe I know what it means. I remember sitting in a tub (none of these people or places were familiar to me), with a very frail woman bent over in the tub crying and I was holding her and comforting her. Over me stood a very large angry man and he was yelling at the frail woman. I got the impression it was a case of domestic violence and this happened to her a lot. I was feeling that if I wasn't there the man would hit her. I didn't stand up, but I started yelling at the man to go away and leave her alone while I still held her. I felt that if I yelled at him and was firm, he would go away and that he wouldn't hit me, only her if I didn't protect her. I remember he left and my mind was racing with things I would do to take care of her and get her away from this abuse. Just thinking about this dream can make me shake inside. Please understand, there's no domestic abuse in my house. My very darling husband would never think of raising a hand to me. He also would never be verbally abusive to me. He is supportive of me in every way. But I figured out who these characters really were in my subconsious and what the true meaning of this was. All three characters in a way were me. The large man was my overly critical part of myself that always wants me to handle everything better. I think my brain can be quite abusive to myself sometimes. It's not that I want things to be perfect (I think I do, but I've been working on that), but I do expect myself to handle things better than I do. The frail woman is my inner scared being that sometimes wishes I could crawl back under the covers and have everything made OK when things are going bad. The real me that was acting in the dream doing the comforting and standing up to the large scary man was the real me, strong and trying to deal with life's up and downs while comforting the inner me that is really, really scared.

OK, I'm ready to cry now thinking about this dream, but that's what it was and I'm trying to think what I can do to act on what I saw. Some of it I knew was good. I need to stand up to my inner critic, but I'm worried about the frail woman I saw that needed to be comforted. I hope I'm up for it.