08 May 2017

On March 08, 2017 I had a dream about a Big Mess in a house.

A few days later I wrote about the metaphor of a Mess and how the dream showed some cultural challenges people have with dealing with messes. Basically, the big issue is that no one wants to step up to take responsibility for things so issues just get worse and lead to decay. Here is a link to the original Messy House Dream and my analysis.

Interestingly, on March 08, 2017 I was running out of money. I was waiting to hear back from EI about my claim and I couldn’t find employment anywhere. But on March 27th I started working full time for an employer I loved and there was no sign that anything negative could happen in the near future. But on April 30th I was informed that my store, as well as 4 or 5 others across Canada were closing.

Now it’s May 08th and I’m unemployed again and basically back in the same position I was in back in March. So I’m looking back at this Messy House Dream and thinking about how can I do things differently.

So now I’m going to take this metaphor deeper than before.

A house in a dream is a symbol for Self.

Mess is a symbol for ego.

Ego is the mind’s protection and it uses negative emotions or actions based on fear, anger, jealousy when there is a perceived threat, real or imagined.

In reality, there was a time when I did leave everything behind. When I left Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada on July 02, 2013, I thought I would be returning on August 02, 2013. But instead I accepted a teaching position at a private school and re-located with my daughter to Ontario.

At the time, I was being stalked by a family member who was doing really peculiar behaviour like breaking into my apartment and attacking me physically. I was also in the middle of an extremely complex divorce and dealing with a lot of negativity from the new partner of my ex. At the time I was earning more than $50,000 in my work as an Instrutor at the local college and as a freelance writer for the daily newspaper. However, my debts, and the negativity in my life, and the high cost of living in Fort McMurray, led me to experience conditions of poverty, even though it appeared things weren’t so bad.

At the same time as all that, I was researching child-trafficking in Alberta and interviewing people who had experienced mind-control torture among other things. I was learning about so many dark secrets about our society that are just under the surface of every day life and yet I was keeping all this confidential because it wasn’t time to expose any of it yet.

So when I decided to stay in London, Ontario I just abandoned everything I had been building up in Fort McMurray. Metaphorically, it’s like I did what I saw in the dream. Just left food on the counter, dishes in the sink, laundry in the washing machine, bikes in the basement. And I let other people deal with the aftermath.

At the time, I felt a bit proud of myself for having no attachments to anything in this world. But what I realize now is that because I didn’t talk with anyone about my move then I actually hurt and confused a lot of people. I lost precious friendships during that time.

It didn’t help of course, that someone was also targeting me on social media and saying horrifically negative and untrue things about me. That really made a bad situation worse.

If they were not doing their negative thing online, then for sure I would have hundreds of close friends right now and I would have been able to connect with people before, during and after my move.

But at the time, all I could think to do was to close down my social media accounts in order to stay out of the conflict they were trying to start with me.

Unfortunately, that apparently hurt people too which I did not realize would be an issue until it was too late. Some people followed up with me but some people didn’t. It seemed to leave a lot of people confused.

In the meantime, the job that I left my home for disappeared. The school I was working for was closing and the administration was giving more information to the teachers than they were to the parents. I tried to problem-solve with the school administration. I tried to have conversations with them about a crisis of epic purportions but they would not give me their time. So I had to give my notice. They were losing a teacher and yet not replacing her and the school was not set up to support proper education. My daughter and I could not have survived what was happening at the school from January 2013 – June 2013. I had to get her to a good and stable environment and I had to get myself into a good employment situation.

Who could have guessed that EI would make errors and delays in my claim leading me to not have any money until April? Who could have guess a bus would hit and total my car leaving me without transportation? Who could have guessed my ex would fill up with his own fears and take back his approval of my move and threaten to accuse me of kidnapping? Who could have guessed that the London economy had so much nepotism in it that it would take years before I found suitable employment in my field for a salary which allowed me to sustain myself and my daughter. Who could have guessed?

Who could have guessed that when I reached out for help because I was running out of money and was going hungry that my friends would turn their back on me? Who could have guessed that when others saw what I was going through they would not offer to help but instead called Children’s Aid Society to request I was investigated. (For your information, I had one phone call with an intake worker and she closed the case because she saw that I was a good parent in a very complicated financial situation…however, now that is on my record and the school is “keeping an eye” on me! How incredibly wrong, unlawful, inappropriate and disgusting…but that is a topic for another day!)

The horrors I saw in a “civilized” society which claim to be keeping up the “status quo” were so shocking that at times I felt so much hatred for my fellow human beings that I couldn’t bare to look or talk to a single soul. I didn’t even want to associate with anyone on this planet because I could see their atrocious injustice towards single women raising children without support from family or community.

Back in those days, 2013 – 2015 I just did not have enough strength, capacity or resources to deal with the enormous MESS that my employers, family members, and community were creating for me.

I have more resources now and things are quite different.

To begin with, I’ll publish this post as an Open Letter to anyone who ever wondered what happened in summer 2013 and what challenges were faced and overcome in the years that followed.