Greetings my lovelies,

I found a new wording for coffee. It’s not just my magic bean potion anymore. Now it’s the dark elixir of sanity, and I absolutely love that phrasing.

Could you imagine walking into Starbucks or Black Rock and saying, “I’d like a large dark elixir of sanity, please, with cream and sugar”? Although now cream and sugar sound entirely too boring. We need something better. Maybe cream is enchanted cloud and sugar is sweet crystals of sanity.

“Yes, I’ll have a dark elixir of sanity with a splash of enchanted cloud and two sweet crystals of sanity.”

There. Much better.

This post has been four days in the making. Every morning I would start writing before work, get distracted by something, and by the time I made it back to my computer, it was time to actually start working. Such is my life.

There is only so much you can accomplish between 4:00 and 6:30 in the morning when you have a house to straighten up, fur babies to take care of, yourself to make somewhat human, coffee to consume, and a little centering to squeeze in before customers start calling with whatever technological fuckery has invaded their lives that particular morning.

I’m not complaining. I actually like what I do. Some days are just easier than others. But I made a decision when September started.

This is going to be a great month.

Not because I’m expecting thirty days of rainbows, unicorns, and everybody behaving themselves. Please. I’ve been alive for 56 years. I know better. I’m saying that I get to decide what kind of month I have. I don’t have to let other people affect or infect me.

Apparently my subconscious heard me say that and replied, “Challenge accepted,” because my dreams this week have been freaking weird.

The more I’ve thought about them, though, the more I’ve realized that the important part isn’t necessarily figuring out what every single symbol means. I’m not interested in looking up “pirate dream meaning” and having some random website tell me Mercury is in my toaster and therefore I need to buy amethyst. I’m more interested in why these particular dreams are sticking with me, because I think they’re connected.

Earlier this week I dreamed I was in what, the more I think about it, seemed to be some kind of mental hospital. The doctors kept telling me I needed to stay for observation, and I kept telling them I absolutely did not.

I wasn’t sick. I didn’t need to be there. I remember telling them about everything I had already survived and all the roles I had carried throughout my life—caretaker, wife, mother, daughter. I’ve been through some shit, and I knew myself well enough to know I didn’t need someone else deciding whether I was capable of handling my own life.

I wasn’t asking permission to leave. I was telling them I was leaving.

Meanwhile, my father was wandering around wearing nothing but a sheet.

Yes, my father.

I could see his face clear as day, or at least exactly how I last remember him looking. Dad and I don’t have a relationship anymore. I’ve made my peace with that. That part is on him, and I stopped trying to fix something I couldn’t fix by myself a long time ago.

Still, of all the people my subconscious could have cast in this dream, there he was—wandering around a mental hospital wearing nothing but a sheet, acting goofy and crazy while someone else had to tell him to cover himself. Make that make sense.

There’s something almost hilariously backwards about the whole thing. I was supposedly the one who needed to be observed, yet Dad was the one wandering around half-naked while other people tried to get him to behave. Meanwhile, I’m standing there saying, “There is nothing wrong with me. I’m leaving.”

But there’s something else I noticed when I thought about it later. I didn’t try to fix him. I didn’t chase after him, try to make him behave, or take responsibility for the fact that he was wandering around in a sheet.

Dream Dad got to wander around in his damn sheet, and I left.

Considering our history, maybe that matters more than the sheet itself. Maybe there’s some deep psychological meaning buried in there, or maybe my subconscious inherited my sarcastic sense of humor. Probably both.

There were other strange pieces to that dream. I found old writings of mine, except the words looked almost like an ancient language. There were beautiful colors, spirals, and this strange symbol that stayed with me after I woke up. I actually drew the damn thing because I couldn’t get it out of my head.

That part really caught my attention because I’ve been spending so much time lately digging through my old writings. I’ve been going back through years of blog posts, old names, old versions of myself, things I believed, things I survived, and things I had completely forgotten I’d written. Then my dreaming brain hands me more old writings, except this time I can’t read them.

Interesting.

Do I know exactly what that means? Nope. And I’m perfectly comfortable saying that.

Maybe I’m looking at parts of myself I don’t completely understand yet. Maybe the spirals represent revisiting old places without actually going backward. Maybe the symbol means something to me that I haven’t figured out. Or maybe my brain decided to produce psychedelic hieroglyphics at three in the morning because apparently it has hobbies now.

Unlike some of the self-appointed spiritual authorities I’ve stumbled across online lately, I don’t believe every strange dream means I need to declare myself Supreme High Priestess of Dream Interpretation and make a TikTok explaining what the universe is desperately trying to tell everyone.

Oh, we’ll get to that particular fuckery in another post. I have thoughts.

Then last night I dreamed about my mom.

That dream wasn’t scary or strange. It was actually really nice. I don’t remember exactly what I was writing or saying, but I remember talking about Mom and defending her.

When I woke up, I missed her. I mean, I really, really missed her.

My heart ached for her so badly that I needed to hear her voice, so I played one of the voicemails I have saved.

And there she was.

For those few seconds she wasn’t a photograph, ashes, or a memory of what her voice sounded like. She was Mom.

Then the voicemail ended, and I sat there bawling my eyes out wondering, Why do I do this to myself?

Except I know why. Because I wanted my mom.

Yesterday marked four months since she died, and I still can’t quite wrap my head around that.

Four months?

How has the world kept right on moving for four months without her in it?

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Her mother lived until 93. Her grandmother lived until 92. Her aunt lived until 102. Why did my mother have to leave so early?

I know that’s not how life works. Longevity isn’t some family inheritance where you’re guaranteed the same number of years as the women who came before you. I know that. But damn it, I feel cheated. I thought we had more time.

And underneath all of that is the question grief keeps whispering in my ear: Could I have done more?

Mom was supposed to come live with us after her stroke last year. She couldn’t drive anymore. She could barely see. She wasn’t taking care of herself the way she needed to or keeping up with her doctor’s appointments. She had started smoking again and drinking again.

But Mom insisted she was fine. She didn’t need to live with me. She could take care of herself. Now there is this part of me that wants to go backward and change everything.

You should have just gone and gotten her.

I should have driven there, packed her shit, put her in the car, and brought her home. Let her yell at me. Let her be pissed. Except she was an adult who believed she was mentally capable of making her own decisions. I couldn’t simply show up and take away her autonomy because I thought I knew what was best for her. Trying to force the issue could have turned into an ugly legal battle.

Would things have been different if I had fought harder? Would she still be here?

I don’t know.

And that may be one of the hardest parts of grief. It can create a thousand alternate versions of the past, and in every one of them you get to change the thing you desperately wish you could change now. In mine, Mom comes here. She gets healthier. She lives another ten years, fifteen years, maybe even long enough to become one of those stubborn women in our family who sails right into her 90s.

Gods, I wish I had gotten that version.

But I didn’t.

Something about the dream has been nagging at me too. I wasn’t angry with Mom in it, and I wasn’t blaming her.

I was defending her.

That’s interesting considering how much my waking mind has been wrestling with what I should have done differently.

Maybe some part of me understands something my grieving heart hasn’t completely accepted yet: Mom made choices too. I can wish she had made different ones. I can wish I had somehow changed her mind. I can wish I had gone there, packed her things, and brought her home.

I can be angry about what happened and still love her fiercely.

But loving someone doesn’t give you control over every choice they make. That’s a hard one, especially when they’re gone and you’re the one left here replaying everything.

This morning I listened to that saved voicemail, cried my eyes out, and for a few seconds got to hear my mom again. Sometimes grief doesn’t need a beautiful lesson wrapped around it.

Sometimes you just want your mom.

And I really, really do.

Then there was the other dream, and holy hell, Dreamland apparently decided we needed to change genres.

Ronnie and I had a house. When you first walked in, there was a long room full of windows, almost like a sunroom. There were boxes and clutter everywhere, things that needed to be cleaned up, sorted through, and put away.

The strange part was that none of the rooms were being used the way they should have been. What should have been the dining room had this beautiful ornate white wooden bed frame with a nightstand beside it—but no mattress. Another room, maybe an office or sitting room, had a dark wooden bed, also with no mattress. In what should have been the living room there was basically a wooden sitting bench surrounded by more boxes and random stuff.

It looked like someone had furnished the entire house by throwing shit into whatever room was closest and saying, “Yep. Good enough.”

Then there was Ronnie, sitting on something—I honestly don’t even know what—looking rather pleased with himself. He asked if I liked what he’d done.

“No. I do not.”

Poor Dream Ronnie.

I told him there should be a dining room, a living room, a kitchen, and bedrooms. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Everything was wrong.

Then I went toward the back door and discovered men outside who looked like pirates trying to get into our house.

Yes. Pirates. Because apparently my subconscious has a costume department now.

Chloe was right there with me at first, barking her head off, tail wagging, jumping up against the door trying to see who the hell these people were.

And why pirates? I wondered about that too.

I don’t think there’s some universal spiritual meaning where dreaming of a pirate automatically means something profound. But think about what pirates represent in the stories we’ve heard our entire lives. They invade, cross boundaries, take things that don’t belong to them, and don’t exactly knock politely and ask whether now is a convenient time to pillage your shit.

So maybe pirates were actually the perfect characters for my subconscious to cast as intruders. Or maybe Dreamland just wanted a little swashbuckling drama. Either way, there they were.

I held the back door shut and yelled for Ronnie to help me several times, but he just stood around the corner staring at me. At some point Chloe, who had started out barking and trying to investigate, apparently decided these people were actually scary and retreated into the corner.

Can’t say I blame her.

Then I realized the men weren’t only at the back door. They were coming through the front. Ronnie just stood there watching them come in, and one of them actually took a swing at him.

Oh, hell no.

Something inside me snapped.

“GET OUT! You are banned from my life and my house! GET OUT!”

They went outside into the front yard laughing at me, which was the wrong answer, assholes. I followed them right outside and told them to get off my property. They weren’t allowed in my life, my house, my yard—none of it.

Eventually they went out to the road, and then they disappeared.

When I turned around, everything had changed. Ronnie was sitting inside, but now the room was beautiful. It was clean and organized. Everything was where it belonged. The house finally looked the way I wanted it to look.

And that’s when this ridiculous pirate dream stopped feeling quite so ridiculous.

I’ve dreamed about houses many times throughout my life, and usually those dreams are horrible. The houses are worn down, dark, and scary. There are spirits inside. Sometimes zombies or evil people are trying to get in.

The worst part is that I can never stop them. There are missing windows. Doors won’t close or lock. Sometimes there aren’t proper doors at all. There is always some opening somewhere that leaves me exposed, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t make the house secure. I’ve woken up from those dreams terrified and sometimes unable to move for a few moments because they felt so damn real.

But this house was different.

This house had doors.

It had windows. The house itself wasn’t falling apart. Sure, it was messy. There were boxes everywhere, the rooms weren’t arranged correctly, and things still needed to be sorted out. But the structure was there.

And it was mine.

More importantly, when people came into my house who weren’t welcome, I got them out.

That’s where all three of these dreams suddenly started connecting for me.

In the hospital, other people were trying to tell me whether I was capable of making decisions for myself, and I told them no. My father was there behaving strangely, but I didn’t chase him around trying to fix him or take responsibility for him. I left.

With Mom, I was defending her. Now, awake, I’m struggling with the painful truth that I could love her, worry about her, beg her to make different choices, and desperately want to save her—but ultimately she had autonomy too.

Then there is the house. People tried to enter my space without permission, and I threw them out.

Different dreams, but maybe the same question: Who gets authority over my life?

There’s another part of the house dream I almost missed. I asked Ronnie for help, and he didn’t help. The door didn’t ultimately stop the pirates either because they found another way inside.

But I still got them out.

My safety in that dream didn’t depend on someone else rescuing me. It didn’t depend on Ronnie suddenly becoming Dream Rambo, Chloe protecting me, or a perfectly locked door keeping everything bad outside.

I protected my own space.

And I didn’t stop when the intruders were out of the house. They stood in my yard laughing at me, and apparently Dream Rae said, “Oh, you think we’re done?”

Nope.

Not the house. Not the yard. Not the property.

Get all the way out.

And they did.

That’s a hell of a difference from those old dreams where I couldn’t even close the damn door.

I’ve spent weeks going through old writings, old blogs, old names, and old versions of myself. I’m not trying to become those women again. I’m figuring out which pieces of them still belong with me. Maybe all those boxes in the house aren’t such a bad image for where I am right now.

I’m sorting through things. There are things to unpack, things worth keeping, things that belong somewhere else, and things I’ve carried around long enough that can finally go straight into the metaphorical dumpster.

The same goes for people, expectations, beliefs, old wounds, and all the baggage I’ve collected over 56 years. Just because something has occupied space in my life for a long time doesn’t mean it gets permanent residence.

I decide who and what stays now.

Maybe the messy house doesn’t mean I’m a mess. Maybe it means I’m reorganizing.

The house wasn’t destroyed. It wasn’t dangerous. It wasn’t beyond saving. It simply wasn’t arranged the way I wanted it yet. Once I removed what didn’t belong there, suddenly I could see what the house was supposed to be.

Maybe that’s where I am.

I’m not rebuilding myself from nothing. I’m rearranging the rooms, opening old boxes and deciding what’s worth keeping, throwing out some shit, and getting much more particular about who gets a key.

Could all of these dreams simply be my brain processing grief, family history, memories, boundaries, and the ridiculous amount of digging through my past I’ve been doing lately?

Absolutely.

Could there also be something deeper stirring around in there?

Maybe.

I’m a witch. Of course I’m going to leave a little room for mystery.

But I don’t need to know exactly what every spiral, bed frame, sheet, pirate, box, or strange symbol means to recognize that something has changed.

Dream Rae isn’t helpless anymore.

Even when someone else claims authority over me, I speak. When my father appears, I don’t take responsibility for him. While I’m grieving Mom, I can love and defend her without pretending I had control over every choice she made. When Ronnie doesn’t help and even when the pirates get through the damn door, I still have a voice.

Compared with all those old dreams where the house couldn’t even be secured, where I couldn’t keep anything out, and where I woke up terrified and unable to move, that’s one hell of a change.

My dream houses used to have no doors.

This one did.

The house isn’t finished, and neither am I. There are still boxes to unpack and rooms to rearrange. I’m sure I’ll find things shoved into metaphorical closets that make me say, “What the hell was I thinking?”

That’s life.

But the doors are finally there, and now I know something I don’t think Dream Rae always knew before: I can close them. I can open them too. I can decide who comes through them.

And if someone gets through who doesn’t belong there?

Well, apparently I know how to deal with pirates.

Now I’m going to refill my dark elixir of sanity with a little enchanted cloud because apparently this Saturday has decided we’re doing grief, weird dreams, family issues, boundaries, pirates, coffee, and existential revelations before lunch.

Of course we are.

Until next time, my lovelies.

Blessed be.