Recurring Nightmares
Both my kids are in school now and I get a little piece of my life back.
I keep having dreams that I’m wandering through poorly organized thrift stores, finding the best items, vintage things with character and personality. While shopping, I always get this sense of urgency. I have to shop faster, grab more. My friends and family are getting frustrated. They’re going to see my cart and they’re going to berate me about it.
I need these things, I think, knowing deep down that I actually don’t. But it’s the compulsion, the momentary excitement, the joy. Looking at the items keeps the dopamine going. I’m high on it, while simultaneously panicked at the same time that the high will end.
Then I wake up.
For a while now, I’ve been thinking my son might have ADHD. My husband sometimes rolls his eyes when I mention it. He also rolls his eyes speculate having ADHD myself. It’s normal, I think. Since covid, it’s been normal to wonder. The memes are all over the place. How does one not see things they relate to and wonder.
I doubt I’ll ever get myself checked. My son, however, has sensory issues and food issues, and during the summer we had him visiting an occupational therapist to engage in food play to get him used to all the textures and stuff so that hopefully he’ll eat something more than just grilled cheese and chicken nuggets.
All summer, I was scared about what kindergarten was going to be like. He cried when walking into the school each day. Every time I spoke to him, he said he was scared of the moment when I had to leave him and he would be alone. In the minutes before the bell rang, he’d cry it out, tiny first gripped tight around the straps of his backpack. He just dreads feeling that feeling, and I do my best to remind him that it’s just a little blip in time he doesn’t need to dread so much.
Each day, it’s a little bit different. He processes it, though. Sometimes he cries. Sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he needs a hug. Sometimes he needs three hugs. Sometimes he goes in, never looking back.
I’m glad that I can at least give him the space to navigate that feeling. It’s hard to watch. He was a covid kid and stayed at home with me all the time. My dad went to a boarding school because his parents were missionaries, and he didn’t see them for months after he went into school. Like it’s kinda fucked, and he’s only just starting to talk about it. I know boomers get a lot of flack for lacking in sympathy, but I understand that a lot of them really don’t know how to talk about their emotional damage. They literally don’t know how to talk about serious matters at all. They struggle with vulnerability.
I have a gen x friend who always laughs about his past, but I love hearing his stories. I always appreciate candid testimony.
As for me, an elder millennial, I’ve been fortunate to have only grown up in poverty, and to only have a bulk of my emotional damage stem from a constant need to be perfect. I’ve had body dysmorphia, and I always thought I was fat and ugly and a need to be famous and desired and wanted and loved. Constant hunger and consumption is truly the millennial way. Hence the thrift store dreams, I guess. Like, I’ve got some values and a need for “authencity” (I’m an INFP, yo), and I guess hoarding thrift store clothes “feels” authentic even though it isn’t. There are a billion memes from people who use thrifting as a coping mechanism, and it’s really no different than buying Funko pops or Loungefly backpacks or fucking Stanley mugs. It’s the same damn shit.
I know that I have lots of clothes. A year ago I had no vests and wanted to start wearing vests and now I have a collection of probably like 15 vests. In a fucking year, I bought 15 vests. Some I wear pretty regularly. Some, I’ve worn once. I’m at least aware of my problem, though. I hope I can slowly wean myself off the hoarding, the compulsive shopping. It’s hard, though, because I always have an hour between dropping off my kids at school and then going to work, and because I take the bus, I have to spend that time in some kind of facility. In every single place, I’m forced to spend money out of boredom.
I’ve started reading books. I need to just sit in the local coffee shop and read a book. I’ll have to spend $5 on the coffee, of course, but supporting a local business over Starbucks is better than nothing. It’s also better than spending $100 at Value Village, which is what I did yesterday.
Music: Currently listening to “Happiness is an Inside Job” by Royal and the Serpent, which is an EP that resonates with me so hard. It’s soul music.