Where's my locker?

So this evening was Matt and my mother's birthday celebration at Bistro Praha and I am so full of Steak Tartar and pasta I feel like I might barf.

I really don't have much to say other than that was delicious, but that experience left me not wanting more. 

I feel like I am going to die.

I am not sure why I am blogging right now, because as I type I am annoying myself and making my stomach queasy, but I do have a strange dream that is reaccuring to discuss.

I am back in Mckernan, the school I attended in the same class of the same people for ten years, and it is the first day of grade 7, 8 or 9. We get assigned to our homeroom and our lockers are outside. In some dreams it's not clear who our teacher is but it is always either Mr. Shaw (who was my homeroom for two years) or Mr. Oskiboiny-is that how you spell that name Kt? Anywho, one weird thing is that it is always on the opposite side of the school that I normally had a locker, not sure what that means but yeah.

We get our lockers assigned to us and I put on my lock on my locker and cruise to my first class. Then I get in there and I don't  know anyone in there so I must have the wrong class. I then go back to my locker, and it's not actually my locker, I have forgotten my locker number. Then I look around at the locks and think I have found mine, and then I can't remember the combination. I am stuck in the hallway unable to get my books and don't know where to go.

Now in a way this a completely ridiculous dream, but it is also interesting, because I am in real life a very confident person, but in these dreams I am vulnerable, weak, and afraid. Exactly the opposite of the person I really am. It is also interesting how whenever I get my locker there is something in there, glued on the inside of the door. I can't remember exactly what it is every time, but I know the last time there was the front of a card I got when I was a little girl of a kitten with a big head.

I am not sure of the significance of this but it seems to be a reaccuring theme.

I have so many dreams about being back at Mckernan, I wonder if a child being in the same school with the same kids for that long is a good thing or a bad thing, it's not like I've kept any buddies from there really, I mean, I like them and if I saw them around I'd say hi and chat or whatevs, but it's not like they were all at my wedding. I may see them in my dreams or on my Facebook feed, but that's about it.

Strange, because I was so happy to leave my elementary/Jr. High school, but once I did I was lost. I spent grade ten completely wandering the hallways of my new high school that I was so excited to attend. When I was at Mckernan I was a bit of an odd duck, not a loner but just different from my classmates. I also didn't do as well academically. I couldn't get the math, and to make it even harder it was in French, everything was in French. I felt like the weirdest one in my class, like I didn't fit in.

So near the end of my ten years of French Immersion at MCK, I was so excited to get to a different school where I could be myself and meet other like minded people.
I got there and my world was completely turned upside down.

I have never discussed this before with anyone, but I hated life that first year of high school.

Several factors played into this feeling.
First of all, I had been with the same classmates for ten years, and as much as I said I just hated being with them year after year, they had become a huge part of my life as I knew it. Kindergarten to grade nine is a long time. All of a sudden I was in several classes with different people in all of them and some were better than others, but my math class was by far the worst.

So like I said, I had difficulties with math as a youngster. When I was younger, like six or seven, I wasn't quite that bad, I got most concepts like the other kids around me, but in grade 3 we got these horrible workbooks we had to do chapters and chapters of questions and it made me HATE MATH. I remember from grade 3 to 6 I spent my whole life doing fucking math. I hated it so I didn't do all that well. Then the test would come and my head was so jumbled with what I thought was right and what I thought I understood and even when I did know something it would be forgotten in the middle of one of these scary tests.

So I carry on failing at math through Jr. High, but by grade eight stopped caring about school work in general, especially math. I just decided one day I didn't give a fuck and started wearing that. I failed so miserably in math that they put me in the lowest level of math possible in grade ten- MATH 14.

If you don't know what MATH 14 is like, trust me, it's bad.

The first day we did a little worksheet that started with the equation 2+2=. I was like, oh my god, what have I done by not caring?

I look around the class, and the cast of characters included a pregnant chick who cut herself, a really gross guy that picked his nose and turned around to look at me all the time, a girl with a missing finger from the states, one guy who definitely didn't seem to even speak english and a few badly behaved stoner/slackers from the north side.

I remember hanging out with new friends in my other more normal classes and someone said something about being in math 13 , one above 14, and then someone said, "well, at least you aren't in math 14, that's where the retards are" this followed by laughter, and of course I laughed too, but I hid my book from those girls the rest of the year.

I was so ashamed of my having to do grade four math in high school that I hid this from most people, even lied to people about it. Now I wanted to do better, so I made sure to keep my marks up so I could get ahead.

So grade ten was payback for all the years of slacking off in math. I had to do long division and times tables again. It sucked. I was so hating having to sneak to that class that it made me hate school, when I was supposed to be loving my first year of high school. I just wanted to run away and hide. I almost wanted to crawl back into my cocoon of the same, it was comforting somehow. I missed it.

So I kinda went off track here and blabbed until I don't even know what I am blabbing about. Oh yeah, my fear of inadequacy especially in school. I kept having dreams of failing tests back in Jr. High, all through high school and into adulthood. Though they are less frequent now I have had many lately.

Sorry that was long and I really don't know the answer on this one.

I know I'll probably have these dreams forever, I guess I am forever scarred by French Immersion math.

I know I won't be putting my kids in ANY kind of Immersion program, whatsoever.

(One time Matt insisted we would have to put our kids in Madarin or Cantonese Immersion, and he pushed it just for the sake of argument and I got really mad and was like, I don't know if I can have kids with you... FUCKING CANTONESE???!!!)

Camera hooring.

Camera hooraying with Salem, who you can only see like a lump of velvety fur behind me, he was grooming himself. I love that boy.

Off to bed with me, I am going to work tomorrow!

See you pretties soon!

-E.

A speech and a bottle of wine

So I wasn't going to post this on here, but lately this dream has been haunting me somewhat and I have been telling friends and family about it. A few weeks back I had a biopsy on a couple of lumps I had on my lymph removal scar. This raises alarm because cancer will often come back in the lymph nodes around the one that was cancerous, so any lumps or bumps need to be analyzed. I waited six long days before finding out that it was just scar tissue and a reaction to the dissolvable stitches I had back in March. FEEE-EWWW!!! I let out a sigh of relief.

Interesting how this scare helped me to accept my mortality because I realized that if there was more cancer, this could have been my last Christmas. I went to bed the night before I got my results and had a feeling I'd never have in my life- I felt peaceful about it. I said to myself, so this could be it, and of course I'll fight, but this is the situation and you have to ride the ride till the end. I went to sleep thinking this, and here is the dream I had that night.  I wrote it down the next afternoon.


I am dressed like Daisy Duke, with horrible cut off shorts and crop top on a chilly day. I decide to go to the highlevel diner alone to get myself a bottle of wine and for some reason I bring leftovers from my fridge for them to warm and serve me. Chicken and potatoes, a meal I had prepared in real life that week. I enter the diner, and I am greeted by the applause and warm faces of my closest friends, family and even faces from random times of my life who seemed to matter. Someone in the crowd hands me a microphone and this crowd chants      

  " speech speech speech!"
Of course I appear coy and uncertain about the idea before I grab the mic and begin my speech by saying "hello friends family and loved ones, I am of course the legendary Erin Welsh, which you already know, and I have lived on this earth the last 28 years to blow your mind, rock your socks, and shake up the world around us, and make society a prettier place to be. Some people just need my help, and I am happy to provide it. I do what I want and look good doing whatever I please. Though I may be vain and live for indulgence, I still love you all better than all of it, and the best happiness I've felt in my lifetime wouldn't be close to tangible without the most amazing spirits that surround me. Thank you friends, my heart explodes with the love I have for you all."
Or something like that.
I am blown out of my seat onto the floor by the applause, happy laughter and cheers from this crowd. I've never felt such joy and completion than in this moment, in my whole life.

As I am sitting at my table alone, my leftovers make their way to me with a bottle of Chardonnay and I begin my meal. As I am eating I hear servers saying "lock the doors, we are closed." all the waiters near by are looking right at me with a room full of customers all dining. I know inside I'll have to leave first. Even though I wasn't being forced to leave an outside force was pulling me out. I look down at the reheated meal I brought and decided I wasn't at all hungry. I grab the bottle of wine and I down the whole thing, I down it in two big swigs, and I walk out of the restaurant with everyone smilling and laughing and cheering and my heart swelling and I walk out to 109st and take in all the places I had already seen so many times, but today, it was the most beautiful city I'd ever seen. I walk to a corner and hop in a cab, and I watch myself roll away.

When I woke up from this dream, and I know this sounds kinda cheesy- but I felt like I had just said goodbye to my life, and I had tears in my eyes but a smile on my face. I realized that if this was the beginning of the end today, I could die knowing I have had a great life with so many wonderful people by my side. To me that is all that matters.

I went to work and was thinking about the dream, but also was overwhelmed with a need to know the results of this biopsy. I had a deep feeling that my results were in so I called the doctors office. A reception girl said, yes, the results were in but I would have to wait for a nurse to call me later on. My nerves shot through the roof at this point. Luckily they didn't keep me waiting long and a few minutes later a nurse called me and told me the good news- I'm not dying. I can't even tell you how important this dream is and how much more I love and appreciate every single second of everyday. There is a new magic in my life that faded with childhood. Life means so much more when you face losing it.

-E.