Where thou art, that is Home

Ever since I was about 16, I get what I call "house dreams".  They come just before I'm about to embark on a new path, one that will require a lot of difficult and painful emotional work.  The houses have been different over time. The one I got just before my first rehab was me walking through what was left of my house after a fire had swept through leaving only the studs and the foundation.

There was the one that kept recurring over the course of two decades. At first it was simple really, just a ladder that led up to the attic. But I couldn't get up the ladder for some reason.  In subsequent dreams I was able to get up the ladder only to find the entrance to the attic sealed up by a brick wall.  At some point the bricks were gone and then there was the issue of being too far away to see what was really in the attic.  It was like viewing it long distance. At some point the dreams progressed to me walking carefully around rotting floor boards to peep into small parts of the attic, but it was scary and I had to be so careful where I stepped for fear of falling.  Eventually I was able to walk around in the attic and realize that everything up there was old, dusty and useless.  There was nothing of interest in there and no mysteries to uncover. 

Another was a house that I had inherited full of furniture, antiques and collectibles of every kind.  Since I was going to live there I had to decide which items were useful and which ones needed to go. The burden of keeping all that furniture was so heavy.  It took up too much space and rendered several rooms in the house completely useless.  The rooms were in essence just storage for pieces I really didn't want and would never use.  I decided to get rid of all of it and start fresh with my own things.

This last one came in February or March of this year.  It was a different house than any of the others - stately and well-worn, but solid.  There was an old man helping me, showing me what I needed to do.  There were tons and tons of files in this room, you see, and they needed to be purged.  I would need to go through each file throwing out anything that wasn't useful anymore, arranging them so they flowed better.  I saw that it was a big job, but nothing I couldn't handle.  And there was something very satisfying about knowing that when I was finished, things would be easier and flow more smoothly.  When I woke, I knew that something big was coming.  That's the way it always is with those dreams.  It means something is coming.  A season.  Time to take on whatever is getting in my way.  A time to renew, revise and refresh my life.  Time to grow up yet again.