Skating: Part Deux

As a follow up to my tremendous failure at roller skating on Sunday, I drove about an hour outside the city to a suburban roller rink with drop-in lessons on Monday nights last night.

Side note: This suburb isn't really an hour outside of Chicago - it took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there in rush hour traffic, and about forty-five minutes to get home in non-rush hour traffic, so it's really not that bad. I just don't know how many miles it is, which is why I gave the time measurement instead.

What a difference an hour makes!

When I first stepped on the floor, everything about me must have screamed "BEGINNER!" in part because I am one, and in part because I was essentially pulling myself along the wall going around the rink. It was sad and pathetic. I know that. But I thought if I could just get used to the feeling of moving on skates, maybe I could get used to the balance thing and then I wouldn't feel so totally out of control of my body and then maybe I could figure out how to pick one foot up at a time and actually skate.

I got about half-way around the rink and a very nice gentleman skated over to me and said, "Just relax, just relax," as he grabbed my hands and sort of shook them to release the tension.  I told him this was my second time on skates and that I was an actor in a play for which I needed to learn to skate and found out he was familiar with the show already. He, apparently, helped procure the skates and gear for us. He told me the lesson would be starting shortly and that I should try to get back to the (now) far end of the rink because that is where the beginners would be.

I made my way over there and started skating back and forth against the wall. I felt bad for going against traffic half of the time, but the other skaters on the rink were far enough away from the wall that it wasn't a huge deal. The instructor came over and told me to just practice almost walking in the skates, keeping my feet under me. When you try to step in front of yourself, you lose control of the skate and fall on your butt. If you keep your feet under you, you actually start moving in the skates. Which is what the woman on Sunday must have meant when she said, "It's kind of like marching." So I did. I "marched" back and forth next to the wall, trying to hold on to it less and less with each pass. The instructor started working with his other beginning skaters on other things, but told me to just keep at what I was doing, and in five or ten minutes, he wanted me far enough away from the wall that I couldn't catch myself if I wanted/needed to. I took that to mean, "try this now," and moved away from the wall. Miraculously, I stayed standing! And moved across the floor, gaining more confidence and (some) speed with each pass. There were a few trips across the floor where I actually felt like I was skating - my balance was in the right place, the foot movement was easy, I could look up at where I was going instead of at the floor, I could almost give a little push to get some extra momentum, I was gliding. I decided I would throw in a toe stop at the end of each pass so I can get used to actual derby girl skate moves while I'm learning and figured out that I must be left-footed. My left toe stop is much better than my right.

After about a half an hour, the instructor came over and gave me my own set of cones to skate between. He wanted me to slalom around them, to encourage me to pick up my feet, which makes changing directions and turning easier. So I did. I slalomed around the cones. I was doing so well with it, in fact, that he added another cone in the middle to make two of the turns tighter. Only once in all of my passes did I stumble enough that I had to put one knee down on the rink. But I got right back up (since I know how) and finished the pass, turned around, and went back for more.

I have no idea how many times I skated across the rink last night. An hour's worth of times. And when the class was over, I thanked the instructor profusely. He had no idea how much his simple instructions helped me, but they did. I kind of get it now. I'm not saying I'm great at it by any stretch of the imagination, but I was able to skate back to the bench near my locker when the lesson was over without holding on to anything or falling over.

I'm sure I looked silly out there in the full gear when I could barely skate. And I'm sure the tall, slender hot guy who skated like a pro was thinking a woman shaped like me should not be wearing yoga pants in public. But you know what? I didn't care. I didn't care in the slightest. This was not about looking good, or showing off, or dressing up so someone would hit on me. This was about me gaining a skill. This was about me gaining confidence. Which I totally did. I know I'm not great yet, but after last night, I know I can get there, which is something I didn't know after Sunday night. The instructor told me the next time I come back for the drop-in lessons, he'll have me away from the wall in the lesson with the other beginners. He was impressed with the progress I made in an hour. I was impressed with the progress I made. And I talked briefly to a couple of the other beginning skaters as we were taking off our skates and they were really nice. Including an older gentleman (probably in his sixties?) who just decided that he wanted to learn to skate, so he's been coming to the Monday night lessons for a few weeks already. He told me I look beautiful on skates.

I think it also did me a world of good to go and try this at my own speed in a place where I knew nobody. There was no fear of shame or humiliation - if I was really awful, I wouldn't necessarily have to go back to that rink. Nobody had to watch me learn or judge my progress, which means I was comfortable flailing my arms to regain balance when I needed to do that. I found myself biting my lip a lot and licking my lips - my signature "I'm concentrating really hard" ticks. But none of that mattered. I was learning to skate at my own pace in my own time. And I think a couple more sessions like that and I'll feel better keeping up with the girls at our next derby skate date.

A huge thank you to the suburban roller rink for being an awesome place with awesome people, and a huge thank you to the instructor who just let me learn in my own time. You have no idea how much you helped!

Sometimes, You Just Have to Fail

I realize that the title of this post sounds very negative, and I realize that a lot of this post will contain negative language, but it is kind of necessary for documenting this process. I know if I document how awful it felt at the beginning, it will feel that much better at the end.

I have been cast in a play about the roller derby that goes up in November, in which I play a derby girl. I was thrilled to even be invited to audition for this company (they do great work and are awesome people), and even more thrilled when they offered me a role. It is a script they have already been workshopping for about a year, and they decided that they needed more derby girls in it to make it feel more authentic, so they did some searching and rounded out the cast with a total of ten derby girls. I think I was among the last to join the cast, if not the actual last person to join, so while this process has been in motion for a year already, it's only been a part of my life for about three weeks. This can be an issue in and of itself in some productions, but the writer, director, and other actors have been awesome so far in making me feel like part of the group. It has me really excited for the show, even though it is six months away.

Now the fun part. I don't know how to roller skate. I skated once at somebody's birthday party when I was in elementary school (if you count "pulling yourself along the wall while wearing roller skates" as "skating"), and of course I fell at some point and some other kid rolled over my wrist. I cried and sat on the sidelines until somebody took me home. And that is the extent of my experience with roller skating. I think my mom tried rollerblading when I was in high school, and I may have put the blades on and walked through the (carpeted) living room wearing them, but that was it. I was never much of an ice skater, either. I could maintain balance and use the toe pick to give myself a bit of momentum, but yeah. When it comes to roller skating, I am a total beginner.

Everyone else in the cast knows how to skate.

Last night, we went out to a facility where a woman who used to be a derby girl helps train women who want to try out for the derby. In other words, this woman knows what she's talking about. When she tells you to put your helmet on first and don't take it off until you leave the floor, you put your helmet on and don't touch it until your skates are off and you're seated in the lobby. We have a couple more of these skate dates scheduled to try to get the cast into good enough skating shape that we'll look like derby girls on stage. So we went over safety equipment (helmet, mouth guards, knee and elbow pads, wrist guards) and learned how to fall before even putting on skates. I was doing great up until that point - I can fall like a pro, especially when I have knee pads and wrist guards on. Besides, falling from skater stance means you're only falling about eight inches, so it's not that big of a deal.

Then the skates went on and my dignity and self-respect went out the window. I could stand up on them, and learned fairly quickly how to maintain a stationary position (toe stop or t-stand). But then they told us to move over to the wall and I was completely lost. I don't know how to move in these things. I know the theory of it, but my body has never done this before. Somehow, my feet felt glued to the ground and I was afraid to pick my skates up more than about half of an inch. Despite our falling lessons, showing us how to fall forward without injuring ourselves, I found myself relying on my stage combat experience of learning how to fall backward without injuring myself. I landed on my bum within about a foot of where I initially stood up.   The first one to fall. And it was suddenly broadcast to everyone in the room - the rest of the cast, the director, the writer, the trainers - just how far behind I am on the learning curve. There was no hiding it - I suck at roller skating.

Once up on our skates, the trainers/instructors started us on what they feel were the basic things you need to  know as a derby girl - how to stop and how to fall. In conjunction with "how to fall" is "how to get back up again really fast so you're not a target on the track and don't turn into a squished speed bump." I fully agree that these are important things to know how to do and I listened attentively to the theories presented. When we had to actually do them...how can you practice a good left toe stop if you're not moving to begin with? One of the instructors came over to me for about ten seconds and I told her I had never skated before in my life. She encouraged me to just practice skating back and forth across the floor, then, instead of focusing on the stops, and told me, "It's kind of like marching," before she skated away. In each drill, I was the last girl to get moving, the last to make it across the floor. I know my cast mates/team mates don't hold that against me at this point, but after a while, I couldn't tell if my face was bright red from exertion or embarrassment. I'm not used to being not grounded in my body and I'm not used to sucking so badly in a public forum with people I've not known very long.

When it was time to take a five minute break and get water, it took me the entire five minutes to get over to the side where I finally had to suck it up and ask one of the other women (a former derby girl herself) to bring my water bottle to me. And we were right back into it, now doing training drills. Skate like normal, then when the whistle blows, take the skater stance and hold it until the second whistle. I couldn't get moving, but I could hold the stance, no problem. Now we're going to skate and on the whistles, do our various stops, then our various falls, then switch directions and do it all again and again and again. "Skating" around in circles, I was hugging the inside of the track, which I realized was probably awful floor positioning for someone as inept at skating as I am, largely from the standpoint of my team mates - I was right exactly in their way a lot of the time. And finally, my frustration and exhaustion hit its peak and I crawled into the infield and made my way off the floor. I was largely a hazard at that point, anyway, so I felt justified in crawling off of the floor. One woman helped me get across the lanes of traffic at the end, and she was concerned for my well-being. I'm sure my face was neon red by this point - it was still flushed when I got home forty-five minutes later. I felt dejected and disappointed in myself and humiliated. Perhaps even a little bit angry. I know the point of the evening was not to work with an absolute beginner and help her learn to skate, but I felt thrust into something way beyond my skill level with no safety net, so to speak.

If this was something I was doing just for fun in my normal life, I probably would not go out of my way to skate again. But I am learning to do this for a show, and I have at least nine other women out there counting on me to get my ass in gear by the time we open. I apologized to the writer and director for having to call it quits early in the evening and promised them I would do better. They both thanked me for putting myself out there and trying in the first place. Because if there is one major lesson that we all learned last night, it is that when you fall down, you get back up as quick as you can and keep going.

So I'm going to drive about an hour tonight to get to a roller rink in the suburbs (they don't have many in the city anymore) where they have lessons on Monday nights before free skating time. And I'm going to take my helmet and pads and skates and I'm going to get back out there on that floor and hopefully learn how to move. Because this is not about my humiliation. This is not about my disappointment. This is about picking myself back up as quick as I can because there are people counting on me to do this. Last night when people were saying, "By the end of this, you'll be the best skater of all of us," and when the instructor pointed me out at the end of the night saying, "I think you did a really great job tonight, too," I felt like the three-year-old playing T-ball who can't hit the ball off of the tee, but gets a Participant Trophy at the end of the season. Except as an adult, I know exactly what that Participant Trophy means.

I'm not giving up - I think we all know by now that I don't give up on things that scare me. I feel like crap about this at the moment, though, and I thought it was important for me to keep track of that, so six months from now, when I'm flying around the track just like all of the other girls, I will be able to fully appreciate exactly how sweet that is. Sometimes, you have to fail first so you know how to succeed later.

And, on the up side, I have enough booty that I walked away from last night with only a bruised ego.

So That Happened

As it turns out, all of my worry was for nothing.

We went in and shot the play last night and I actually had a lot of fun doing it. It was kind of amazing to me (and everyone else there) how fresh the show was considering we've not touched it in two and a half months. But I think we were all still finding new things in the script to play with and it was just plain fun.

The end product is not going to be posted on the interweb for all to see. It will be distributed to the five of us involved in the production on DVD to just...have. So we have it. In case we need it for something, or want to take a quick jaunt down memory lane for a few minutes. Meaning, I don't think I need to worry about the girls from high school or random dudes in LA seeing it and finding me physically repulsive. Beyond which, we got to watch it last night when we were done shooting and I didn't find myself nearly as physically repulsive as I had built myself up in my head to be. I'm not saying I have a perfect beach bod that I'm going to run around all summer flaunting it in a bikini or anything, but I also don't think I look like Jabba the Hut, either, so that's reassuring. I think it also helped that the cameraman was doing facial close-ups whenever possible so my rear end spends quite a bit of time not on screen, which is good. If I'm allowed to say it, though, I have super crazy long legs. Just sayin'.

Anyway. All that worry for nothing. It feels good to have that under my belt. And safely tucked away where I have some sort of control over who gets to see it. That makes me happy.

Fear of Exposure

I have to admit, I'm a little bit scared and nervous.

A couple of months ago, I was in a showcase of plays at the theater where I had been taking classes. All around, it was an amazing experience and I got to work with incredible people and just plain had a great time doing the showcase.

One of the pieces I was in had me playing a hooker that nobody wants, essentially. The show was about these two guys who have a fantasy and are confronted with a reality and don't really like the reality. It's a great piece and I loved doing it, even though it involved a rather small costume (nothing that would garner an X rating, barely R, if you ask me. All of the important bits were covered). The whole point of casting someone like me in this role is that I am not a size zero and in a way, it was empowering to be on stage every night in that role, possibly making audience members uncomfortable for how exposed I was physically and emotionally.

This coming Sunday, we're filming the piece so that we have the piece filmed. I don't remember whose idea it was - if the playwright wants it for his portfolio or if it is supposed to be the start of a "film bits of theater" type project that will include other plays down the line or if we're just doing it for the sheer joy of doing it, but we're filming the piece on Sunday. And I'm nervous.

That kind of physical exposure in live theater is easy for me to wrap my brain around and get comfortable with. It is sort of like ripping a band-aid off - you just take off the coat and there you are in a halter top and short shorts and you still have a show to do. Hopefully you can affect the audience enough that they aren't picking apart every one of your physical flaws in the four minutes you are on stage.

That kind of physical exposure on film is daunting. People will be able to freeze frame on me while I'm sitting down or twisting oddly so I'll look even bigger than I actually am. People who aren't of the mindset that they are going to see art that is making a statement may have access to see it. And while I am perfectly comfortable doing it and kind of flattered that I get to represent the non-stick girl in a "sexy" role, I know that not everyone who watches the film will see it that way. I know that girls I went to high school with will watch it and think, "Oh my god, she looks terrible!" so that they can feel better about themselves. Even random strangers may post comments (depending on how the film is distributed) talking about how repulsive it is to have a woman of my shape on film wearing so little. Depending on how the film is distributed, I kind of feel like I have to brace myself for an onslaught of "Sweet jebus, she's disgusting," because I'm not what you expect to see when you expect to see a hooker.

That being said, I'm not going to not do it. Yes, I'm a little scared and nervous, but I'm not going to let that stop me (is that what people are referring to when they call me fearless?). The people who saw the show live were impressed with my bravery and emotional presence in the scene - even people who didn't know me. I made a great impression on fellow actors whose work I have long admired. So I'm not going to let a little fear stand in the way of producing art I believe in. And I'm not going to starve myself between now and Sunday to try to lose two pounds before the shoot. I like food. Food is my friend. Food is necessary for survival and I would much rather look like this than be unhappy, groggy, and grumpy all of the time because I'm not eating enough carbohydrates. I think The Brothers Green will agree with me on this and as we all know, what The Brothers Green say is law. I mean that in the best possible way - I've been a little obsessed with watching their videos in all of their various forms recently because they're just, well, charming, intelligent, and funny.

But I digresss.

I'm looking forward to having a record of this project - that part is really cool. I'm just nervous about what people will say about my physical shape, which can best be described as "round." People can be mean. Especially people you don't know on the internet. So I'm apologizing in advance if I need to lean on the people who love me a little bit and ask for reassurances that you still love me even though I'm rounder than your typical Hollywood starlet. I do sort of hope that if more people like me get to play more roles like this and gain more exposure, maybe we can shift (albeit slowly) the general perception of female beauty away from something that is unattainable, unhealthy, and detrimental to so many. Baby steps, right? Here's hoping this can be one of them.

Or maybe I'm worrying about nothing because the only people who will ever see it are people who saw the live production anyway.I do tend to worry about things needlessly from time to time.

Grumble, Grumble

I've been angry a lot lately and I don't like that. If you are one of the people I have been angry in the general direction of lately, I apologize for that. I know who and what is making me angry (for the most part), but I don't necessarily have good mechanisms in place for dealing with those specific things or people. I don't know what to do when confronted with incompetence and pettiness and apathy and dismissal.  For the most part, I think I'm pretty good at keeping the focus of my anger where it belongs - toward the specific instance of incompetence or pettiness or apathy or dismissal - as opposed to just letting loose and being a bitch to every one and every thing around me.  But I don't like having this much anger.  It's not good for me to be angry so much of the time.

I also know that the Universe doesn't owe me anything. The only thing it could be argued that I really have a right to is oxygen, so I shouldn't get so bent out of shape when I follow the rules and am told there is a reward at the end and then find out that there is no reward. Nobody owes me a reward. I have no more right to it than anyone else. Though it sometimes feels like I have less of a chance to get it than anyone else. I know there have been instances in my life where it came down to the difficult decision of choosing me or choosing someone else and nine times out of ten, the someone else is chosen. I'm not the sort that gets picked. I'm not the sort that wins things. And I have to wonder if I don't get the benefit of the doubt (or whatever it is that ultimately makes someone else get picked over me) because people just kind of know I'll be okay without that opportunity. Which I usually am. It just gets frustrating to not get that opportunity, you know?

I think it is important to recognize anger. To be able to name it and place it where it is supposed to go. But I also think it is important to let it go once it has been identified, and I need to get better at that. Holding on to this much anger is detrimental to my well-being and makes me a person I don't want to be.

Sometimes, I just need to let it go.

I Just...I Just Don't Know

I'm feeling a little ootsy today, which, of course, has me thinking I should blog.  Writing helps, right?  Right?

I went to a rehearsal/audition/workshop thingy last night (I'm honestly not sure what it was as we were working on a play (kind of) in which I have yet to be cast (officially, if I ever will be cast, I don't know) but we read scenes and danced and brainstormed and whatnot) in a neighborhood I don't think I've ever visited before.  I go to this particular suburb fairly often because it's right next door to the city and it has a really good movie theater, but when I'm going to the theater, I drive north until I don't need to anymore and then I turn right.  To get to the rehearsal/audition/workshop thingy, I turned left.  Which, for all of you Whovians out there might bring up ominous feeling and let me say, rightly so.  Rightly so.  I turned left.  And within a block or so, I started to feel very out of place.  I don't know that I can describe this feeling to people who don't live in major metropolitan areas, but after living in a city for a while, you start to get an instinctive feel for what neighborhoods you're comfortable walking around in at night by yourself and which ones you are not.  I started to get the feeling that this was one I should not be walking around in at night by myself.  Which was inconvenient as it was night and I was by myself.  There is a high school there, which should indicate some level of safety, but I also know that hooligans like to hang out near their school and wreak havoc from time to time.  Maybe because they don't like school in general, or maybe because they all know where it is and how to get there.  And since there was really lovely weather last night, there were plenty of people out and about.  Or, just out.  There was a mob of twenty or so kids hanging out in front of the building where my rehearsal/audition/workshop thingy was taking place, just sort of hanging out.  Until one of them yelled, "Now!" and they swarmed into the intersection like migratory birds or something and jumped up on the cars parked along either side of the street.

Now, I don't like to be one to believe stereotypes.  I like to believe that people are generally good and if you don't bug them, they won't bug you.  Like bees.  But I also know that "mob mentality" is a real thing, so these kids running into the street (against the light, mind you) and jumping on parked cars made me nervous.  Scratch that.  It scared me. I was afraid to leave my car and walk into the building.  I thought about asking them to please just not jump on MY car, but realized that would involve talking to them which may appear confrontational and it may just be an invitation for them to really vandalize my car.  Like when someone asks you to stop calling them "Buddy," so you do nothing but call them "Buddy" for the next three years because you know it annoys them.

On the up side, they didn't do anything to my car.  Nor did they even really notice me as I walked into the building.  So that's good.  But it left sort of a weird flavor in my mouth all night and sort of tainted my first impression of the really cool place where the rehearsal/audition/workshop thingy took place.  I'm going back there during the day on Sunday for another rehearsal/audition/workshop thingy, and hopefully that will help cleanse the palate.

But I think the experience carried over into my dreams.  I dreamed I was suddenly put in charge of a small child - a boy maybe five years old?  He looked like the young version of Jimmy from Raising Hope - whose mother (the only existing parent) was going off to war.  And this kid did not like that arrangement AT ALL.  He was crying and whining and squirming and complaining.  He wanted to call her on the aircraft carrier she was on headed over to the Middle East and I was trying to explain that this wasn't a good time to call mommy because she was doing military type stuff and time changes and do they even have phones on aircraft carriers for personal calls and then suddenly, my honorary sister was there saying it was totally possible to call this kid's mom because she was in transit and probably not all that busy at the moment anyway, which was very not helpful.  The kid even made a break for it, like he was going to run away and find his mom and I felt so helpless and ineffective and alone in the whole thing.  I woke up feeling miserable, and kind of annoyed with my honorary sister for not backing me up.

I'm getting tired of these dreams of helplessness and loneliness.  I'm sure they have to do with things going on in my life that I don't want to talk about here, and are probably a reflection of the fact that I have no control over those things and it drives me crazy that I just have to let them play out, you know?  But I'm ready for them to play out so I can stop having upsetting dreams.  Upsetting dreams do not leave a person feeling rested and ready to face the new day.

But we have nice weather at the moment (record high temperatures), which means I get to walk outside on my lunch break from work.  Which is nice.  If I get a little nice during the day, it helps offset the not-so-nice at night.

I could still use a decent night's sleep, though.

Dreams

I've been tired a lot lately, and as such, I've been sleeping a lot.  I'm not sure if that's helping, though, because I've been having some really odd, rather disturbing dreams of late.

Last night, I had a dream that I was going to my own engagement party. It took place at a church (which was strange enough to begin with), and when we walked in, the walls were covered with white pieces of paper that had names on them.  I think they were supposed to be roses or some sort of decoration for the party, because there was a basket of them on one of the side tables and a sign that said, "Name and Relationship."  My guess is that people were supposed to write their name on the rose and how they knew the bride or groom and  put them on the wall, maybe so we could see how supported and loved we were? Thing is, I didn't recognize any of the names.  I had arrived at the party with my mother, and watched her very determinedly fill out a rose and stick it on the wall in an act of "even if we don't know these other people, I love my daughter" and I love her for that.   She's that kind of mom.  But my fiance was suspiciously absent from the party, as well. Even in photographs. There were pictures of him and pictures of me, but only one of the two of us together and for the life of me, I can't place his face.  In my dream, I remember saying, "I guess maybe we should start taking some pictures together."  And I knew that I wasn't terribly excited about this marriage.  Whoever this guy was (I remember his name was James and I think he was a friend of my brother's?), I wasn't marrying him because we were head over heels in love but because he asked and who else was I going to marry?  So that dream left me feeling rather sad.  My own engagement party was a) not really about me and b) not cause for much celebration.

So I woke up, scritched my cat behind the ears for a few minutes and went back to sleep.

I had another dream, this time that I was in the emergency room of a hospital giving blood.  I gave two pints from my left arm and they wanted to get another one from my right, and then they had to collect some bone marrow or something from my right wrist joint.  After they got the third pint of blood but before the wrist joint thing, I saw some other friends of mine in the emergency room who were there for other various procedures and I chatted with them for a bit.  I felt safe when I hugged them and terrified of going back to my "bed" for the wrist joint thing.  Because I knew that in order for them to get whatever it was they needed, they would have to insert a very long, very large needle through the heel of my hand to the bones in my wrist.  I didn't want my friends to let me go, or I wanted one of them to go with me, but they had their own procedures to have done.  So I went back to my bed when I had no more excuses not to, and they had adjusted it so that my feet would be higher than my head, presumably to facilitate getting the right angle from my palm through to my wrist, but they adjusted it too far and I slid right off, head first, onto the floor.  We all laughed about that for a minute and I climbed back onto the bed (I stayed on this time) and hoped against hope that it wouldn't hurt as bad as I thought it was going to.  But it did.  In my dream, I could feel the pain of the needle piercing my palm and penetrating through to my wrist.  I wanted someone's hand to hold and squeeze, but none of my friends were there.  And the really strange part is not so much that I felt this horrid pain in my dream, but that I was aware that while I was dreaming about this pain in my hand, I consciously knew I was lying in my own bed at home with my hand resting on my stomach.  I could feel that position in real life at the same time.  It was odd.  And painful.  And when I woke up for good this time, I checked my hand first thing to see if there was a mark on it.  Which, of course, there wasn't.

So the common threads in these dreams were feelings of solitude, sadness, and nonchalance.  Add these to the dream I had a couple of nights ago about single-handedly fighting blue zombies with machetes (and eventually losing when a child zombie bit my thigh) and I'd say I'm about due for a really happy dream.  A dream wherein I feel loved and safe and secure and happy.  Or, there is something going on in my life that is making me feel very isolated that I need to examine.  These sorts of dreams certainly don't make sleeping very restful.