Dreamlife March 11 - Robin

Type: working through unresolved feelings
People:  Pam and Peter, Anne, Leslie
featured: apologies

I went looking for Pam and Peter (yes, I needed their contact information for the high school reunion).  As I was driving with a lot of Mexican food in the car, I saw their names on a sign by a driveway.  I turned down the driveway and they were there.  I said I was confirming their address for an invitation to the reunion but that I also wanted to apologize for what I said the last time I saw them.  Pam accepted the apology and I gave her some of the food.

I asked Peter if he was still a minister and he said he wasn't because of the "Italian Catholic thing" in his family.

Leslie showed up and wanted to take the food and carefully created portions of what was left.  She wasn't mad, but I seemed to have messed up her plans by giving Pam and Peter some of the food. 

*******

I was in a check-out line at a grocery store and Anne was working there.  I was glad to see here and I initiated a conversation. I asked if we could work out our differences.  She said that she was willing to try.  She didn't apologize, but it was a step, I thought.

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Annotation

Pam and Peter - The first person I looked for when I started tracking down contacts for the High School reunion was Pam.  We used to be friends—I was a bridesmaid in her wedding, for example—but she became born again, her husband became a minister, and we really had nothing in common any more.  When I saw her at the 20th high school reunion, we got in an argument about religion in which she called some of the things I hold dear "evil" and I responded that I thought her religion was the true evil.  It is the latter thing that I wanted to apologize for.  I am way mellower about religion than I used to be, and while I don't really want our friendship to return, I want to have a better end than that.

I did find two phone leads on where Pam and Peter are now.  I plan to call the numbers and, yes, apologize to Pam. Peter was neither Italian nor Catholic so this comment made no sense when he said it in the dream or now.  That said, there is a lot of talk about Catholics in the Republican Presidential Primary and in Andrew Sullivan's blog, which I read daily.  Not so much about Italian Catholics, though...

(edit note 2013:  The reunion came and went and it was wonderful. Sadly, Pam died of breast cancer, so I never got to apologize.  Glad I did it in my dream.)

Anne - We used to be electricians together—she was a year ahead of me in apprenticeship.  We were very friendly and I enjoyed her sense of fun and humor. I loved it when we were on the job together. She was the fourth in the bridge game the night I met Leslie.  She and her husband (who was in my apprenticeship class) were born again, and she no longer wanted to be friends because I wouldn't renounce the "sin" of my relationship with Leslie.  I have been waiting since then for her to come to her senses and apologize (not about the religion but about about throwing away a relationship in a very non-Christian manner).  This is a recurrent dream in one form or another.

Leslie - I have often blown it and eaten food that Leslie didn't want me to as she had a plan unknown to me. (I am pretty good about asking now, though.)  And Leslie has gotten on my case about taking more than my share of various occasions, so portions are occasionally an issue.

Religion - I think at this point in my dream journal, it might be obvious to the onlooker that I have various unresolved issues about religion.  Being an atheist who likes to be friends with lots of different folks, including people who think I am a sinner, has created a whole lot of cognitive dissonance for me.  I am constantly trying to resolve this tension.