Mary + Her Mental Health

I have some of the most intense conversations with people in my dreams. I have never been more eloquent, more verbally concise, or more all-around awesome than when I’m telling someone off in my dreams. Last night, all I remember is having a conversation with a friend with whom I’m a little frustrated at the moment, and it was killer. Don’t remember what I said, or how I said it. But it was the B, and I wish I had written it down! I was a goddess in this dream, I kid you not! I wish there were some way to record the dialogue in my dreams, which I would then transcribe on paper, and then live out what I said to the actual person in actual life. Actual. Actually actual.

I like to think that this means my subconscious mind is a lot smarter than my conscious one. Too bad it goes to waste, just running off onto my pillow.

For the past week, I’ve been waking up regularly and often during the night. These intense dreams have actually stirred me awake. I fall asleep worrying about something, then that worry converts to some kind of twisted plot in dreamland, where I play out the bizarre of the bizarre, to the point where I awaken from it and think….aw crap. A minute ago, subconscious mind said something linguistically spectacular, a minute later, conscious mind iterates: “aw crap.” Someone, please locate and retrieve for me the device that removes the brain from my head long enough to get eight sequential hours of shuteye.

At certain points during the day, a small swatch of an image or a sentence flashes in my mind from the night before, but it vanishes the second I try to focus on it. I suppose I get a D+ in lucid dreaming. (90’s Flashback: any of you remember that awesome rock ballad by Queensryche, “Silent Lucidity”? Did that not rock the emotional cradle of life inside you?)

Every morning, I kneel by my bed and say a prayer. After the bizarre dream conversation, I was still feeling icky. So that became a topic in my prayers, like a “what is this, Lord?” type thing. I came away with the impression that if there were anything worth remembering or using from that dream, He’d make sure I retained it. But as for the rest, just try and forget about it. So there it is. The mind is a mine field. Mind Field! I am so good. That quip musta snuck out of the subconscious for a sec. Conscious mind is still stuck on how to open my bottle of OJ.

Here's me studyin' real real hard. Sometimes I have trouble breathing through my nose.

Last evening, I had a crab cake burger, thanks to my fishy benefactress, Carri. It was good.

So here’s a story…
I’ve always tried to be open to those opportunities to help out where needed, and some days I’m more successful with this than others. On one day last week, I ran into two strange women in the middle of a street in Downtown Crossing. It was obvious they were mother and daughter, one looked like an older version of the other; they even wore their hair the same - - up in a cafeteria-lady type bun. The older lady was sitting in a wheelchair and had her two feet in these blue braces. Her daughter stood behind her. The daughter caught my attention and asked me with this very soft voice:

“Do you think you could give us something to eat, dear (pronounced ‘deaah.’)?”

I asked if there was anything in particular they would like.

“Well, where were you headed, deaah?”

I said I wasn’t sure.

Then, outta nowhere, the woman in the wheelchair begins to place her order:

“I wanna chicken salad sandwich with no onions. They sell ‘em at Finagle a Bagel. No onions. And on flatbread.”

Without even blinking, I say okay, and then ask her daughter what she would like:

“oh, I’ll have the same deaah, only with onions please.”

I comply and then suggest we all head over there.

“oh, we can’t really move, deaah. It’s too haahd with the wheelchair and all. If you’d run over there and get it for us, that would be wonderful. We’ll stay right heaah. Thank you, deaah.”

So off I go to Finagle a Bagel, trying not to forget the “no onions” part. I’m standing in line at the shop wondering if I should’ve asked them what they wanted to drink. And then it hits me…

I am a nerd!! I spend $12 on food for these women, deliver it to them, and I’m standing there feeling bad that I didn’t get a drink order! I am a chump! I’m not saying these women don’t deserve to have their favorite sandwich every now and then. I’m saying it didn’t even occur to me at the time that most people in their situation are not as picky with whether there are onions on their fancy “Finagle” sandwich, don’t care what kind of bread it is so long as it isn’t moldy, and typically don’t presume a free delivery service comes with. When I told my roommate, Peggy, she found the whole thing incredibly amusing.

Moral of the story: if you agree to buy a homeless person lunch, bring a pad and pen.

This is the only photo I have at the moment. Hope you like it.

The glasses are a joke, by the way.

I am excited about starting a new blog, mostly for the outlet it will be for me to selfishly unload thoughts and experiences. I've seen blogs utilized by characters in movies, and thought it seemed a little narcissistic to create an entire webpage about yourself and your ideas. But I think I'm wrong. Maybe it's a way to document your life, to process your experiences, and to connect with others who relate.

This being my first posting, I hope to get better at it. Thanks, Kelly, for introducing me to this thing! I hope to write more very soon.