Unsettled

I am feeling overwhelmed by everything today.

And by "everything", I mean nothing.

There is nothing on my plate.

The Producer is on a business trip to the Bahamas. It was my job to book the flights/hotel/car for her and the rest of the team. When this happened last time, there was a travel mishap and I took the fall for it. This time, any move I make to deal with the trip I fear will cause another unsettling. Not that things ever really settled after last time.

I was plagued by bad dreams last night. In one, The Muse and I were rehearsing a scene for acting class. It was a fairly contemporary scene but I was extremely nervous about acting again. In one section of the dream, we were back in variation of Walters Hall in Rutgers setting the room up to present the scene. I was being terribly persnickety about the placement of the bed, the hanging of curtains, the arrangement of tables and chairs. I wanted to meticulously create the environment of the studio apartment in which this scene took place. I thought that by doing show the teachers would be impressed with my attention to detail and I would become more immersed in the world of the play. The world of the dream, however, was cast over in a dull green haze. I wasn't seeing the world through rose-colored glasses but pea soup-colored glasses. Why? What did this mean? I was very anxious and could not get the placement of furniture right and the teacher was about to walk through the door. I was also certain that I would forget my lines (a common occurrence with me as an actor doing scene work).

Just as the anxiety of that scene was about to overtake me, the dream switched gears. I was now in my apartment -- but the apartment I lived in in the dream, not in real life. And everything was dark and shadowed. In a way, one of the rooms was very similar to my childhood bedroom. The bookcase and the window to the alleyway were almost certainly, exactly the same. Only this was New York not Philadelphia. And, in the dream, I knew that this apartment I was living in had once been the apartment of the playwright who wrote the play from which I was performing a scene for acting class. In my dream I also somehow knew that the playwright had been murdered by his lover in this very apartment.

And the lover, somehow not in prison, was crazy and thought that I was the boyfriend and was coming to kill me. I don't know where the Loved One was in this scenario. I don't know whether the Muse was there or not for rehearsal. I knew that I was in the apartment and the crazy stalker/killer was just outside and it was dark and scary.

I awoke, unsettled.

I fell back asleep into the arms of another dream. In this one, school was still a major factor only it was my job to look after children. The details of this dream are more fuzzy. We were in a large house for a trip. And I left the group of teenagers in the hands of someone else to go find some information. I found myself in a secret room inside of which was another secret door that had a very complex opening mechanism that I managed to figure out. Although there was no clear and present danger, the feeling of something about to wrong was heavy in the air. It was ominous.

I awoke from this dream and got out of bed, knowing that sleep was no longer a place of comfort this night.

What were these about? Is it purely job related? Am I waiting for the shoe to drop here? Am I waiting to get in trouble for not doing what little I have to accomplish correctly? Am I scared of going after what it is that I really want? I don't know what more I can do in that department to "fix" things. I feel stuck.

This weekend, itself, was a bit unsettling for me. The Loved One and I traveled to Philly for my niece's christening. On Saturday we were able to meet up with my former best friend from high school and his family for a brief visit at the Franklin Institute. The Loved One and I walked through the chambers of the giant heart first and I remembered how, as a child, this museum piece was my favorite playground. The loud thumping of the blood pumping through the arteries was soothing. The darkness of the heart was somewhat mysterious but safe.

Now, the heart was old, tired and falling apart. The rushing of blood seemed to me more desperate than thriving. The chambers seemed to sag with age and fatigue. It made me sad and scared.

The Best Friend looked the same. I would recognize him anywhere. The difference? Two children and another on the way. When we last saw each other, it was almost six years ago and his wife was just pregnant with their first. We've talked intermittently since then.

We spent but a few hours together but it felt impossible to have the conversation we really wanted to have which should have been just us over a bottle or two of wine in a crowded smokey bar. Now a professor of philosophy at a college, our conversations always worked better on a deeper plane than on a small talk level and I left him and his family wishing we had had a chance to connect on that deeper level. Perhaps next time. But, perhaps never. And that thought makes me sad.

After that, the Loved One and I succeeded in our mission to find Shamrock Shakes at McDonald's.

Going back to my parents that evening, a car suddenly pulled behind us on the road to the house. It appeared from seemingly no where and rode too close for comfort. As the Loved One pulled in front of my parents house, the car waited behind us for a bit. It did not pass. It seemed to be stalking us. Then it pulled away in front of us. As the Loved One and I gathered our belongings, the car rounded a cul de sac and then pulled up to the corner a block away and watched us. No one got out. They left the lights on. They just idled and sat there. Unsettling.

The next day was the christening and, that too, filled me with sadness. My world view is so dim and depressed these days that the idea of bringing a child into it, terrifies me. In theory, you want a child to live a pain-free existence. In reality, you know that sometimes pain is the best way to learn. When I saw the little children running around the church and later the restaurant I couldn't help but think, at what age does reality set in and begin to take over? When do we stop feeling so free? Is it when we realize that we're mortal?

When my cousin, The Actress, said that she being around all of these babies was difficult for her, being unwillingly single and feeling the pressures of time, I said Do you really want a baby? Unhesitatingly, she answered "Yes." I said, I can barely take care of myself. What would I do with a baby?

And it's true. What on earth would I do with a child? Perhaps it is a female-specific longing, the feel of that pull for a child. While I can see myself as a father, and a good one, I'd want to be a stay-at-home dad in the early years. I'd want to watch the child grow. I'd want to teach him/her all about the things that people don't tell you as you're growing up. I'd want to make sure that they were better than me. If I couldn't, I wouldn't do it. And here I am in no position to give a child that kind of love and attention.

My grandfather, now 94, arrived late to the christening. He has, for all intents and purposes, stopped living his life. The death of grandmother from cancer over 8 years ago was a hard hit to him. He did not know how to live without her. Then the removal of his voice box (cancer) about a year after that was an even harder hit. People started turning away from him on the street, they stopped calling, the avoided him. Left with no means to really communicate, my grandfather feels frustrated, scared and lonely. His house, the house he and my grandmother lived together in, is now dark. The unused bedrooms upstairs are closed off and the shades are drawn. The blinds on the front porch are drawn, allowing little light in. And my grandfather, who always sat on that porch waving and talking to friends, neighbors and strangers, sits on the living room, his back to them, behind more drawn curtains. He wants my mother or my uncle by his side at all times but he does not want to leave the safety of that dark space.

And I understand that. I find it hard to leave the safety and comfort of our apartment. The world outside is too overwhelming, too unsettled, too scary. I feel as if I have no place in it at the moment. I go to an office and sit behind a desk for eight hours a day, forty hours a week and once in a while I do something. But the actions I perform here barely cause a ripple when I'm looking to make waves. And I'm 33, not 94. I can't turn my back on the world and hide away.

My grandfather left the christening, unseen by me. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him. This left me unsettled.

Also, it's Spring. Our garden is beginning to show signs of life. The crocuses, the irises, the tulips are all beginning to show themselves. They're springing to life out of the dark earth. The days are getting longer. Things are changing. And, I fear, that I remain the same.