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Appendix D
Coding of Network Communication
Coding of Network Communication
\PHILIP STEPHENS\
(N-QM-001) Do you still think of your younger sister as being a little girl? K: SISTER
(N-RM-001) I am wondering if you would not have wanted her to see the body of Mike if she was her present age. K: SISTER
(N-QM-002) Does the room featured in the dream, your old room, still have importance to you now? K:GENERAL
(N-QM-003) What do you honestly think of your ex-husband now? K:GENERAL
(N-QM-004) What do you parents and your sister currently think of Mike? K:GENERAL
(N-RM-002) hiding my ex-husband in a closet would seem to suggest that I am hiding some important feelings towards Mike, K:CLOSET K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-003) even though I consider our relationship to be "dead". K:ENDING
(N-RM-004) I can also see an analogy between Mike's body hanging gutted in the closet and the old saying of "skeletons in the closet". K:CLOSET
(N-RM-005) The condition of the body (the mechanical smile, the business suit, the lack of animation) could be revealing my current feelings towards him. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-006) Perhaps I see him as been without much personality, K:FEELINGS (N-RM-007) smiling when he does not mean it, K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-008) without any "guts" perhaps to be himself. K:EXPOSED
(N-RM-009) He is in his business suit, K:GENERAL (N-RM-010) so perhaps he pays more attention to his work than me. K:GENERAL
(N-RM-011) I don't want my younger sister to see the body. Am I trying to protect her from seeing what Mike is really like; K: SISTER
(N-RM-012) perhaps I feel the need to set an exterior of goodwill towards Mike in front of her? K:FEELINGS
ASG102, also known as 'Evil'.
(N-RM-013) Mike dying could represent our relationship dying. K:ENDING (N-RM-014) I feel that it is totally over K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-015) and there is no going back K:ENDING (N-RM-016) although I miss him. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-017) We can't leave him out in the open because seeing him constantly would hurt too much. K:CLOSET
(N-RM-018) I had better put him away permanently and get on with my life. K:GENERAL
(N-RM-019) When I put him in the closet, all I can remember is how fake he was K:CLOSET (N-RM-020) and how he would use people with that plastic smile to get ahead. K:EXPOSED
(N-RM-021 When we were married, I could see him doing this and it didn't upset me as much as it should have. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-022) I knew what he was doing and never said a word about it. K:EXPOSED
(N-RM-023) I could see how empty he was (disemboweled) K:EXPOSED
(N-RM-024) and I'm a little upset that I couldn't have seen through him sooner. K:FEELINGS
\Helen Qian If this were my dream..\
(N-RF-025) I t seems that I'm hiding a lot of feeling about my ex. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-026) I always hide things that I don't want others to see in my closet. K:CLOSET
(N-RF-027) I think he is "inanimate" and "mechanical". K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-028) He's been disembowelled implies that he has no heart, thus no feelings. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-029) He's in business suit and being mechanical also go along the line of having no feelings. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-030) I wish he were dead and butchered. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-031) But I feel guilty about feeling this way. K:FEELINGS
\Dave E. Overwhelmingly, I get the impression that
(N-RM-032) Jane is trying to make sense of her life, K:GENERAL (N-RM-033) and finding it difficult to handle more than one thing at a time, while the world conspires to confuse her, or distract her from the important issues, somehow she can't quite get a grip on her life. K:GENERAL
(N-RM-034) she's only now beginning to come to terms with her divorce, K:FEELINGS (N-RM-035) and put all of that behind her, K:ENDING (N-RM-036) symbolically killing Mike off, K:ENDING
(N-RM-037) and seeing him as an empty shell, come back to 'haunt' her. K:EXPOSED
(N-RM-038) Her emotional confusion (why aren't I crying, I should be), seems fairly natural, K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-039) a kind of guilty feeling about not feeling guilty. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-040) I 'd guess she has nobody special in her life at the moment, K:FEELINGS (N-RM-041) doesn't feel ready for it, K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-042) and 'protects' her family from her anguish by not turning to them for support when she needs it most. K:FAMILY
\David Davis OSU davisd@ucs.orst.edu\
\davisd at PSB DREAM STUDY RESPONSE...\
(N-RM-043) I was talking to friend of mine and he suggested the closet in this dream could be where the monsters are. He said when he was young that is what he thought was in his closet, monsters. He said the man could be a monster, he is rather gruesome, and he is in the closet cause that's where he belongs. I like my ideas better. K:CLOSET
\I would like to start with the third paragraph of the dream in which I describe the body in the closet and my feelings.\
(N-RM-044) The term "dead meat" comes to my mind at this time. For violating our marriage contract by divorce Mike is dead meat. K:ENDING
(N-RM-045) This expresses his position in my current life. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-046) He is no longer a part of my life, i.e. he is dead to me. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-047) It also expresses my feelings toward him. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-048) In my anger towards this violation if I could confront him I would tell him, "you are dead meat mister". K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-049) I tie this into a neat package by hanging him up like a side of beef. K:EXPOSED
(N-RM-050) This explains my lack of emotion in this paragraph, and my revulsion. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-051) My anger and feelings are soothed but I realize a gruesome experience like this is not right. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-052) Mike doesn't care about my feelings now. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-053) I hang him up like a side of beef, I tell him graphically he is dead meat and K:EXPOSED
(N-RM-054) all he does is grin at me. K:EXPOSED
\Look at his expression in the fourth paragraph.
(N-RM-055) Now I realize he has no feeling for me, K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-056) he is empty, gutted, he has no heart. K:EXPOSED
\"...their ribs are there and its kind of empty."
(N-RM-057) This a family situation, K:FAMILY
(N-RM-058) I am coming to terms with my feelings with Mike not being there, K:FEELINGS (N-RM-059) with his lack of emotion. K:FEELINGS (N-RM-060) It is on the table for discussion. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-061) My parents are there with me K:FAMILY
(N-RM-062) looking at the corpse, the remains of my marriage. K:ENDING
(N-RM-063) My concern is my sister, K: SISTER
(N-RM-064) she is too young to be involved in this. K: SISTER
(N-RM-065) I feel she is a young girl and not able to understand all that has gone on. K: SISTER
(N-RM-066) I've got to hide the body from her. K: SISTER
(N-RM-067) So I stuff him in my closet, but its her closet too. K:CLOSET K: SISTER
(N-RM-068) She'll find out, she'll find him eventually and K: SISTER
(N-RM-069) maybe I'll be ready to explain it then. K: SISTER
(N-RM-070) When I first reviewed this dream the song, "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunckle popped into my mind. Specifically the lines, "It's a little secret just the Robinson affair. K:GENERAL
(N-RM-071) Most of all we've got to hide it from the kids." K:GENERAL
\The meaning I gave for the closet incident was not my first choice. My original gut feeling was \
(N-RM-072) it was a childhood closet. A place where things can be hidden safely and never found. K:CLOSET
(N-RM-073) That blue door is a healing door, that hides the pain. K:CLOSET
(N-RM-074) I saw it as keeping a happy face for the younger sister who not allowed to see the remains. K:CLOSET
\I changed my interpretation based on the clarifying questions but I still feel my first interpretation was correct.
\Le Nguyen (lhn@atherton.com)\
\This "dream interpretation" is in response to the dream account from Jane, posted by cdp!jherbert. What follows are my own responses and interpretations.\
(N-RM-075) House, immediate family members - this dream probably deals with a very personal matter. K:FAMILY
(N-RM-076) Putting Mike, my "dead" ex-husband, in the closet, reminds me of the expression "skeletons in one's closet". K:CLOSET
(N-RM-077) I feel the emptiness of butchered carcasses. There is nothing left inside Mike. I feel sad. Mike is really dead. What's left is really a shell. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-078) I also feel dead around Mike. It is as if part of me is dead, the part that was involved with him, that was married to him. Somehow my feelings about Mike are like, dead, K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-079) Although part of me is upset because I feel nothing, or because I am putting Mike back in the closet, I feel it is necessary so my younger me does not get traumatized by the way our relationship marriage has turned out . My inner self, the young, innocent core of me must be protected from this hurt. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-080) I realize that although my relationship with Mike is dead, somehow I am still hanging onto it. Am I denying that the divorce happened? K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-081) That we had loved each other, had gotten married, and had ended up in divorce? K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-082) It probably has not sunk in yet; I am probably in a state of denial at some level... Being divorced makes me feel like I have failed myself, my parents, and Mike. K:FEELINGS
(N-RM-083) Being divorced makes me wonder: Am I incapable of love, or am I unworthy of love? K:FEELINGS
\Christine cwailand Here are my comments on Jane's dream....If it were my dream, \
(N-RF-084) the important aspect would be that it is a "family" affair. K:FAMILY
(N-RF-085) Just as my younger sister inherited my old room, I don't want her follow in my footsteps and see the "deadness" of my relationship with my ex. K: SISTER
(N-RF-086) So I must hide the corpse. Because the corpse is a mechanical looking "thing" I am not upset emotionally, but I think I should be because I remember that there was once a person (or I hoped there would be). K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-087) On a deeper level, I see the younger sister as a metaphor of the younger Jane who actually "inherits" a room with a dead "husband" hiding in the closet. Everyone in the family knew except her and out of concern of how it would look, conspired to hide the corpse. She even cooperated and actively participated in this deceit. K: SISTER
\I would feel that, if I was Jane, that
(N-RF-088) I got stuck with this empty shell of a husband and I was not told about this "hidden" ugliness and hollowness of life. Jane seems to have paid the price of having shut off her feelings and becoming cold for doing what is proper with the family for the sake of appearance. K:FAMILY
(N-RF-089) \Well that is my nickels worth. I enjoyed going through this process and hope all these ideas help Jane to heal and actually "bury" the past by letting go. K:GENERAL
\Response Posted BY John. One of the Saybrook group is out of the country and can not participate as she had planned. I have presented the posted dream to a friend and asked her to respond as if she were on the network, and this is her reply: If this were my dream, I would be disturbed at first that \
(N-RF-090) I didn't seem to feel more shock or grief about Mike's predicament. It's weird, because normally I'm pretty sensitive, quite squeamish actually. So I would assume that this unusually calm reaction is a message from my unconscious. I'd want to know more about that. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-091) I would look at my need to protect my younger sister from seeing the dead body. Maybe I really do feel responsible for her in waking life. But if not (or even if so) I'd think about what qualities she embodies in me. K: SISTER
(N-RF-091a) Next I'd probably view her as representing a younger me. K: SISTER
(N-RF-092) She is a young girl in the dream, and her room was mine when I was a young girl. So the dream might involve a belief, a feeling state, or a world view I developed at that age, and which I still carry. My desire to protect my sister from the unpleasant truth in the dream may be related to my desire to protect the vulnerable, little girl part of me. K: SISTER
(N-RF-093) I seem to feel that this part of me couldn't deal with the fact that Mike, or what he represented to me, is totally dead and gone. A caretaking part of me is trying to "protect" my own youthful sensitivity or idealism or immature thinking from reality. K: SISTER
\The closet metaphor is pretty irresistable -- \
(N-RF-094) some part of me wants to keep unpleasant facts "in the closet". K:CLOSET
(N-RF-095) Lately I've been exploring the ways in which I experience shame -- what triggers it, how I react to it. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-096) Maybe there are secrets about this man or our relationship, K:CLOSET
(N-RF-097) or a feeling of shame about its failure, that I would like to bury, along with him. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-098) I'd want to think about whether I have forgiven myself for my part in the failure of our marriage, K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-099) or owned my opinions of men in general and this one in particular. K:FEELINGS
\Coming at the closet image from a different angle, \
(N-RF-100) I would want to see if there were any skeletons in the family closet K:CLOSET
(N-RF-101) which might date back to when I was a young girl still sleeping in the room in the dream. K:CLOSET
(N-RF-102) Because my parents were present when I hid Mike's body in the closet, K:CLOSET K:FAMILY
(N-RF-103) I'd try to remember what their relationship was like when I was that young girl. K:FAMILY
(N-RF-104) Is there anything about that I don't want to uncover? K:FAMILY
(N-RF-105) Or perhaps I simply feel shame for breaking a family rule about divorce and incurring disapproval. K:FAMILY
(N-RF-106) My ex-husband's mechanical smile even though he's dead shows me I think he's someone who's not what he seems: an imposter who puts forward a false front. K:GENERAL
(N-RF-107) He wears a business suit but there are no guts or heart inside his ribcage, which brings to mind expression "empty suit." K:GENERAL
(N-RF-108) I used to call people empty suits if they seemed to exhibit no character, integrity, heart or soul (that pretty much covers it, I'd say!) K:GENERAL
(N-RF-109) beneath their outer appearance of "having it all together." K:GENERAL
(N-RF-110) They might have been dressed for success, but seemed to have not a clue about anything below the surface. K:GENERAL
(N-RF-111) It was the worst indictment I could muster. K:GENERAL
(N-RF-112) So my opinion of this man doesn't seem to be very high. K:GENERAL
(N-RF-113) I don't feel respect for him in my dream. K:GENERAL
(N-RF-114) It's no surprise to me that he's come to this end. K:FEELINGS
(N-RF-115) I don't think I would have this unfeeling reaction if I hadn't almost expected him to end up this way. K:FEELINGS
+++ END OF CODED NETWORK RESPONSES +++
+++ START OF DREAMER'S REPLIES +++
\ TO PHILIP STEPHENS \
(N-QM-001) Do you still think of your younger sister as being a little girl? K: SISTER
(N-D-100) in a way yes, and yet she's 37 and has two children of her own and is pretty grown up. K: SISTER
(N-RM-001) I am wondering if you would not have wanted her to see the body of Mike if she was her present age. K: SISTER
(N-D-101) She certainly could have handled seeing his body in this stage in life, very much so. K: SISTER
(N-QM-002) Does the room featured in the dream, your old room, still have importance to you now? K:GENERAL
(N-D-102) Not really; it is just a memory. Two years ago I visited the house and knew it would be the last time I saw it. K:GENERAL
(N-D-103) About having the body in the closet, I think there is for me something about putting him in the closet for my little sister not to see was about not really being totally ready to accept the fact that it is over. K:CLOSET K:ENDING
(N-D-104) Knowing it is, but wanting to hide it. K:ENDING
(N-D-105) I found it difficult to accept the relationship dead, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-106) because more than that I find it difficult to accept that anything is completely finished rather than that I would want that relationship back, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-107) because I actually was the one who chose to leave it, K:GENERAL (N-D-108) and I have never actually regretted my decision, given the way we were together. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-109) I wish the marriage could have worked out differently, K:FEELINGS (N-D-110) but given the people that we were, it couldn't have. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-111) It's now (been) nine years since I left him and soon after I left him I came to America from England. K:GENERAL
(N-D-112) Every time I visited, which has been approximately every two years, until now I haven't seen him or talked to him not for very long but for some time. K:GENERAL
(N-D-113) This particular occasion I was there for six weeks and made three attempts to get together with him. K:GENERAL
(N-D-114) I wasn't desperate to do it (see him), it was more out of duty like seeing someone I had known for a long time - K:GENERAL
(N-D-115) how could I not be there for six weeks, and we could never get it organized and I felt that unlike the past times, when he had obviously wanted to see me a lot, K:GENERAL
(N-D-116) obviously the interest is completely gone on his side. K:GENERAL
(N-D-117) It had been gone on my side for years. K:GENERAL
(N-D-118) I had been used to him having the interest in me. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-119) I suppose it was just a realization that it is over in every way, and that was difficult, because as I said earlier, I find it hard to really think something is over in every way. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-120) I had known him since I was 17 and now I'm 44. K:GENERAL
(N-D-121) Was Duplicate Posting - Removed
(N-D-122) The thing about that dream, when I think about the closet, that closet was built by my father, and it was a tiny little room and he made this very nice little blue doored closet for me. K:CLOSET
(N-D-123) I was quite sentimental about visiting that place for the last time when two years ago I visited that house and knowing it was on the market to be sold and subsequently was. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-124) I think that closet and that little room was definitely symbolic of my childhood, my very early childhood, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-125) and Michael was in that closet also. He was also - K:GENERAL
(N-D-126) I met him when I was 17 in high school - K:GENERAL
(N-D-127) I think it was also him saying goodbye to the past. K:GENERAL
\ASG102, also known as 'Evil'.
(N-D-128) About the relationship dying. Yes, I think definitely him being dead is about the relationship dying if it hadn't died. K:ENDING
(N-D-129) I think I was angry with him on my last visit in May of this year when he wouldn't - you know he really didn't have the guts to really - he never took initiatives, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-130) he never really said what he wanted, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-131) he never took hold of things, and he was always in a reactive mode. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-132) And yet having said all of that, he was also a very responsive person too, he would react to whatever I would want, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-133) and he would always respond responsively. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-134) This particular time when I saw him, I felt he hadn't, although I know now I left a number that was a wrong number and he didn't get back to me because it was a wrong number. K:GENERAL
(N-D-135) There was something very half-hearted in my attempt to see him K:FEELINGS
(N-D-136) and his attempt to see me, so it was a mutual thing, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-137) and of course what was upsetting was that we never ever talked about that - how it just evaporated - we never really talked about our relationship, we never really could talk about it. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-138) I think that is what I am angry about, and in the end all I could do, since we could never really talk about it and finish it off, have it really complete, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-139) my reaction to that was I just have to accept an incomplete, and cut it off, and then be cold, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-140) because I can't have any more frustration about wishing it could have been talked through better. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-141) To take this cold attitude was the only one I think I could find that would work for me, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-142) although it didn't feel very good either. K:FEELINGS
\Helen Qian If this were my dream..\
(N-D-143) I don't know that I have a lot of feelings about him. I don't know that he really was inanimate and mechanical and that he had no heart or feelings. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-144) In fact he was a very sensitive and warm person. He was very emotional, although on the surface he seemed analytical. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-145) He was introverted, basically. K:GENERAL
\Dave E.
(N-D-146) That doesn't connect with me at all : I feel I am in charge of my life, competent in my life. It doesn't trigger anything. K:GENERAL
(N-D-147) Having said all that, I am not very satisfied with how the relationship with Michael ended, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-148) but I don't see that as a sign of being confused or distracted in the rest of my life. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-149) There is truth in "she's only now beginning to come to terms with her divorce." K:FEELINGS
(N-D-150) Not just beginning to come to terms with my divorce, I am finally getting complete on coming to terms with it. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-151) I started to come to terms with it about six or eight years ago, and I am beginning to come complete on it now. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-152) And why there were no tears, I think a lot of what I hold on to has been the fantasy of what it could have been and how wonderful it was K:FEELINGS
(N-D-153) when it really never was or in many ways wasn't. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-154) I think it has just been a fantasy that I have hung on to about when I was married he was this or he was that. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-155) I think that was how I wanted to think it was, and it wasn't like that at all. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-156) And that's what feels cold, since I am a feeling kind of person it seems very cold to state that as a fact, but actually it is a fact. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-157) I don't have anyone in my life at the moment who now plays the part that he played for me when I was young and got married, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-158) and I don't know that I want anyone to have that kind of part anymore, because I am a much more fully developed person, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-159) and I have come into my own, I'm my own person. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-160) Then he was big because I was like a response to him and just a very immature woman in her twenties like most people are, I think when they get married in their early twenties. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-161) I built my life around him and K:FEELINGS
(N-D-162) there is the convention of being the wife, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-163) and now I don't want that, it is not what I am looking for, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-164) and the thought of it makes me feel dead inside even that it would be like that. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-165) In fact I have had some rewarding relationships in the last few years, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-166) and the one thing I am really scared of having is one that's dead like that was. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-167) Maybe I am protecting myself a bit but I am not protecting my family, K:FAMILY
(N-D-168) even though it is a bit of an anomaly to be single in your 40's and attractive and not be married in England. When I go back there I am a bit of an anomaly, K:GENERAL
(N-D-169) but I don't care two hoots. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-170) My mother has these romantic fantasies about marriage, K:FAMILY K:FEELINGS
(N-D-171) even though she has had a pretty bad marriage herself and she is still married, K:FAMILY
(N-D-172) and that sort of irritates me K:FEELINGS
(N-D-173) and this whole romantic sentimentalism that there is around marriage that many people hold when their marriage is really not something that I would really want. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-174) I would rather be single any day rather than have those, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-175) so I made a stand to be single and feel good about it, and I really do, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-176) although that is not to say that I would not want to ever be married again. K:FEELINGS
\davisd I was talking to friend of mine and he suggested the closet in this dream could be where the monsters are. He said when he was young that is what he thought was in his closet, monsters. He said the man could be a monster, he is rather gruesome, and he is in the closet cause that's where he belongs. I like my ideas better.
(N-D-177) I don't think Michael ever was a monster. K:CLOSET
\David Davis OSU davisd@ucs.orst.edu\\davisd at PSB
DREAM STUDY RESPONSE...\
(N-D-180) He wasn't dead meat because of the divorce, because I choose the divorce K:GENERAL
(N-D-181) and he was in agony for years because of my choice over it. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-182) He didn't want it. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-183) But I think when I didn't get to responding when I visited this time K:FEELINGS
(N-D-184) and realized "Why was I really calling him?" (because I didn't care anymore), I think it was then that I thought he was dead meat. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-185) It was then, not way back. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-186) Interestingly enough I had seen him at Christmas of this year and I met him simultaneously with another friend Michael that I had known almost the same number of years, but with whom I had shared a house in my undergraduate years. K:GENERAL
(N-D-187) That other Mike had married a good friend of mine, and K:GENERAL
(N-D-188) we had all known each other very well for years. K:GENERAL
(N-D-189) The other Michael was the one that I wanted to have the conversaton with. K:GENERAL
(N-D-190) With my Michael, I had to actively consciously bring him into the conversation, include him, talk to him, and I found it was an effort. K:GENERAL
(N-D-191) It was no effort with the other Michael., K:GENERAL
(N-D-192) I mean it was dead. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-193) And there is something about me that holds on and hangs on, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-194) and I find endings per se difficult, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-195) and I don't think it had anything to do with him. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-196) I think it's true this interpretation that Michael doesn't care about my feeling, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-197) but it is also vice versa, it's reality. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-198) I think what is more on the table for discussion is my coming to terms with the fact that I have no one in my life with whom I have that really strong romantic feeling that I had when I was young. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-199) I am much more realistic about relationships now and discriminating, and much more independent.
(N-D-200) I think coming to terms with that really is important K:FEELINGS
(N-D-201) as that is how I am now that I am in my 40's, and that may be on the table. Coming to terms with that is facing a reality. K:FEELINGS
2(N-D-202) The romance of youth in the way I had it is gone. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-203) It's not even that I want it back because I think it is false. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-204) My coming to terms with that, with the fact that I may even choose to be single for the rest of my life, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-205) although I can always imagine having affairs from time to time with different people, which may be very significant. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-206) So Michael is a thing of my past and maybe being in the closet was my childhood closet. K:GENERAL
\Le Nguyen (lhn@atherton.com)\
(N-D-207) That's true,
(N-D-208) that's true and it's what needs to happen, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-209) and it is also sad. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-210) And it's true that part of me is dead with that, like with any long relationship. K:ENDING K:FEELINGS
(N-D-211) I think the part of you that was in the relationship dies when the relationship dies. K:ENDING K:FEELINGS
(N-D-212) And it does feel weird to think "how could I have been so involved at one time and now feel empty." K:FEELINGS
(N-D-213) And to know that it doesn't necessarily mean it never meant anything, but in a rational way it implies that. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-214) Sometimes I do wonder; K:FEELINGS
(N-D-215) on the one hand I really do not want that kind of romantic fantasy kind of relationship, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-216) and on the other hand sometimes I think maybe these kinds of feelings are still viable but somehow I can't have those kinds of relationships. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-217) Some of the times I think it is not realistic or even desirable, K:FEELINGS
(N-D-218) and other times I think maybe it is but not for me. K:FEELINGS
\Christine cwailand Here are my comments on Jane's dream
(N-D-219) I'm not quite sure that that means, but I have never done anything proper with my family for the sake of appearance. K:FAMILY
(N-D-220) If I had, I would never have divorced, or I would have remarried again if I were doing things for appearance. K:FAMILY
(N-D-221) This may be an appropriate time to mention that a week or two after I had this dream, I had another dream where I was in the dream with my mother's sister who has just recently died in her 60's. In the background there was a church and a coffin was being carried into the church. She and I were talking and it was clear that it was Michael's coffin being taken into the church for what looked like a proper burial. K:GENERAL
\LANE\
(N-D-222) I think that really feels true, and it is to do with the protection from the reality that I mentioned earlier that I experienced growing up, and K: SISTER
(N-D-223) that has me put those feelings about the past into more of a sense that they were more of a fantasy K:FEELINGS
(N-D-224) and a wish to think of marriage as an attempt to play house or K:FEELINGS
(N-D-225) It wasn't really a very delightful relationship. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-226) The next paragraph, the closet metaphor, does not ring true. K:CLOSET
(N-D-227) Maybe there are secrets about this man or our relationship, K:EXPOSED
(N-D-228) but I felt there were none, in the sense that I think she means. K:EXPOSED
(N-D-229) I am disappointed about his failure, but I don't feel shame. K:FEELINGS
(N-D-230) I certainly want to put it behind me, because it is history now. K:GENERAL
(N-D-231) I just sometimes wonder to what extent I can have something that is meaningful and alive with someone without loosing my identity and keeping my independence. K:GENERAL
(N-D-232) Can it really be alive and fun without getting into the rituals of marriage K:GENERAL
(N-D-233) that I want to avoid, K:GENERAL
(N-D-234) where you are just sort of doing things for a - you know, you cook dinner every night because you are a wife, even though I have my own business and I've always been a career woman. K:GENERAL
(N-D-235) That part of being married, that was like carrying out a role of being "wife." K:GENERAL
(N-D-236) And I still, even with the person that I am sharing with right now, a man, I see myself going into (the role?) from time to time and liking it K:FEELINGS
(N-D-237) and then also knowing it could be deadening K:FEELINGS
(N-D-238) because the form of the relationship can get more important than the actual relationship. (N-D-239) he was a real person but he was whimpy I would think. It's the best American expression - K:GENERAL
(N-D-240) he wouldn't stand up for what he really believed in. K:GENERAL
(N-D-241) He would just complain inside, and he was a passive-aggressive type of person. K:GENERAL
(N-D-242) Even though he was warm and kind and had integrity, K:GENERAL
(N-D-243) he had this other piece of him that was not fully there and taking responsibility. K:GENERAL
(N-D-244) He was extremely responsible for or towards everybody else but not for himself. K:GENERAL
Coded Network Communication
End
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