I woke up today during a family gathering for a wedding and went immediately to look for my brother Dan. I had to recount a dream I had about an interaction with another brother. In the dream my brother Tom had come to me and let me know that he had started a blog. Laughingly he said “I think there are some people who like my blog better!” I promptly burst into tears! “You have a PhD!” I cried! “All I have is a blog!” What the reader needs to understand about this is that I am the only girl in a family of quite brilliant men.  It has taken me a long time to find out what I am good at in life, and I will never have a PhD. While I claim I don’t want one, if a university was to bestow one on me as an honor I would be over the moon!

Dreams are like housekeepers of the mind. They work their way through my psyche like a maid with a dust mop, cleaning off cobwebs, and getting rid of dust. A coffee table is sorted and a window is washed as the dream collects my thoughts that have accumulated and sifts through them making order where there is disorder. Any uncertainties and insecurities are gently exposed and often taken care of without leaving a memory.  That I recalled this dream and needed a priest confessor was an eye-opener to me. What had begun has a fun way to start writing in January has become a cobweb that needs to be cleaned.  Am I truly so insecure about the writing process and the blog world that I am allowing my identity to be changed according to the daily stats of a blogosphere?  The relief of laughing about it with my family and confessing to the  worry (I’d love to think it’s crazy worry!)  that someone would  find my brother’s blog more interesting than mine will be mocked for some time. But with the housekeeping of this dream, I’m at a far more orderly place. A place where I can do some self-analysis and come out stronger.

My brother consoled me and challenged me in the same sentence, reminding me that the human heart and it’s allegiance is fickle at best.  The story did, and will, bring much laughter to my extended family. The housekeeping of my mind has exposed that having my identity in anything beyond who I am as created by God is as insecure and precarious as being on a beach during a hurricane.