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Why is it that the stereotypical name for a butler is ‘Jeeves’? Where did that come from?

Sometimes, I have dreams that are so involved that I wake up and feel the need to dwell on them a little bit. I have decided to add a category to this blog called ‘dreams’…ummmm, yeah, so all zero of you who read this blog should be able to guess what will be in this category. It’s a cheap form of therapy. So here goes:

I was walking through a sprawling green college campus, with beautiful brick buildings and perfect tree-lined sidewalks. College students filled this place (as you could imagine). They walked, rode bikes, talked in small groups, and sat on benches.

Surrounding the campus was a huge, concrete city with gang members and graffiti and a generally unappealing atmosphere. If I stepped outside the boundaries of the campus, I was immediately in the city – the boundary was clearly defined: you were either in the city or you were on the college campus, there was no transition.

I only stepped over the boundary into the city once. When I did go into the city I felt an overwhelming sense of hostility and anger directed at me. There was no love here, and no hope. It was not a place I wanted to continue my journey, so I stepped back onto the college campus. I felt safer here, but not content. I felt as though I didn’t have any true friends here and did not belong with these people.

I walked on until I came to a set of rickety wooden stairs. It was as though this staircase was hastily or roughly built because it was not used much, or maybe the people who did use it didn’t really notice it because they were headed somewhere and only had the destination in mind (not the journey).

When I got to the top of the stairs, I was suddenly in my own house. I felt comfortable here until I looked out the picture window in the living room and noticed three little boys staring in at me. They were pale and expressionless. I felt like they were judging me, like they could see the mess of toys in the other room that my younger daughter had made that had not been cleaned up.

I went out to the front yard and asked the boy’s father what they were doing here. He told me that they went to the daycare next door. I accepted this answer and went back inside. The boys continued staring into the living room. I continued to feel self-conscious.

Somehow, I found those rickety wooden stairs again, which I now realized was actually a stairwell. I went up another level until I was in a room that contained people who were just sitting around in chairs. Their faces had no features: no eyes, no mouths, no noses. Just a blank sheet of skin.  They seemed to be content, but I felt instantly bored and restless here. I asked the person at the front of the room if I could go to the bathroom (even though I had no intention of ever coming back).

I headed for the stairwell and went up another flight of stairs, which I knew was the top level. It was a small apartment. A man in his 60’s lived here. We didn’t speak in words, but I could feel his thoughts. He was very proud and righteous and regarded me as someone who was not worth his time. He was, however, extremely happy to show me his coffee maker. He showed me how the light goes on when you press the button. He expected me to be impressed, but I didn’t want to be in his company, so I ran to the stairwell and started running down every flight of stairs. I felt exhilarated, like I was breaking the rules. I thought that people would be chasing me to try to get me to come back, but nobody did.

The bottom level was a basement, and in it were a few older lunch ladies. They were big-boned and wore hairnets and lunch lady-type uniforms. One sat at a desk in the corner of the room, and some stirred large soup pots. I could tell that they were angry and did not want to be there.

I spotted a basement window next to the lunch lady at the desk. The window was packed with snow, but I opened it anyway. A little snow spilled into the basement, but it was just enough to create a hole for me to get out. I jumped up and wriggled through the window and found myself in a 50’s style kitchen. I went out the kitchen door to the outside, but suddenly realized that the lunch lady was coming after me with a huge blowtorch. There was a light blue pool raft next to the house, so I grabbed it and flew up into the air toward a forest that lie ahead of me. I looked back at the lunch lady once; she had given up on me and was headed back to the basement. I was free.

I have over 20 cousins, but the core group (that my husband always refers to as “the cousins” – like we are some sort of mob to be reckoned with) consists of myself and five other girls, all between the ages of 27 and 32. They are family and yet they are so much more than that. We have been traveling through this life together since the first time our parents placed us on the floor in the living room. During our childhood, the older three cousins would always pick on/torment/run away from the younger three. As we grew older and went away to college and pursued our lives, we have always made it a point to support each other and keep in touch with letters, phone calls, and emails.

When we get together, no topic of conversation is off limits. We laugh at the stupidest things until our stomachs hurt. Like the time Amanda ate shrimp and her lips swelled up like Kelly LeBrock. Or when someone-who-will-not-be-named had uncontrollable gas. Oh, and if we are together and someone does happen to fart or burp, then you have to put your fist on your chin, and the last person to do it “ate the fart” (or burp). Where the hell did we come up with that? This is currently an accepted practice and has been ever since I can remember. I’m sure we will all be sitting around as 90-year-old grannies with our fists on our chins, pointing and laughing because “Ha, ha, Kathy ate the fart! She ate it!”

About a year and a half ago I quit my corporate Human Resources job because it was killing my soul. Many people thought I was just being melodramatic, but I would have literally rather died than continue on with a corporate career. I didn’t want to wear high heels and nylons anymore. I didn’t want to go to meetings where people congratulated themselves for being busybodies and nothing was ever accomplished. I didn’t want to continue working my ass off to make my boss look good while he watched UCONN basketball games in his office and made 4 times my salary plus five-figure bonuses and stock options. I didn’t want to listen to anymore buzz words like key competencies, deliverables, metrics, low-hanging fruit, action items and, ‘let’s talk about this offline’.

So after talking (or maybe it was crying) to my husband, I gave my two-week notice and quit. I had no plan and little money, but I immediately got to work building an online retail business that currently brings in a nice little chunk of change, but not enough to survive. In addition to that, I have been working a part time temporary job (from home) for the past 9 months, but the assignment will end this November.

Once this temporary job ends and I ditch the online retail gig (which is more of a thorn in my side than anything else), I will be on to new adventures. And no, for those of you wondering: my husband does not make a lot of money. He works in retail. He is not happy there and will be leaving soon. He feels the same way about all this as I do.

We are not lazy people. We are both smart and creative and enjoy hard work – when we can see the purpose of the work. When the purpose of the work becomes “paying the mortgage” and “filling the car with gas”…well…what’s the point of living? I’m not saying I want to die. I’m saying just the opposite: that there is a whole huge amazing world out there to be discovered. There are people and there is art and music and laughter. And there are things that I’ve never experienced before that I don’t even know about. A job just gets in the way of all of that. I want to LIVE.