La colère

 

I had a spiritually significant dream the other night. One of those dreams that you know means something but you have to puzzle it out afterwards. I was standing in my kitchen looking out my back windows at the yard below, and I saw a Baltimore oriole calling out to me. Under only a night sky, his golden breast feathers stood out in that unusual way that contrasting colors can pop in odd lighting – like seeing a familiar picture but with a filter that forces your eyes to shift focus.

 

Anyway, I looked it up and there was quite a bit to be gathered, depending on where you look. They can be seen as a return to, or a need to return, feeling the happiness of a child. The most general notion was that those brilliant yellow feathers augur some sunshine coming my way, a change of luck so to speak, likely within 2 weeks because that’s the gestation period for oriole eggs. So I’ve been on the lookout for the last couple of days for an opportunity to learn something or grow somehow. I think maybe that happened today.

 

I called Dr. X this morning to report that doubling the dose of hydroxyzine isn’t helping. It’s been a month since I started, 2 weeks at 60 mg a day, and there’s no improvement in my itching. (I just took a quick little research detour to find that an adult could take up to 100 mg per day for Urticaria, but I’m not the expert and I’m ok with that. They gave me a referral to see an allergist. I’m grateful and willing, but I also had to force myself to be a little more assertive than I like and push for another appointment in person because I still have this weird skin thing going on around my mouth. I checked my health record notes, and this started 9-10 months ago with a notable explosion after starting the hydroxyzine and still worsening today. I need to take off my mask and have him take a good look up close. It may well be that my picking, though I judge it as relatively conservative, is in reality an OCD freak fest and I need to lock up the sharp instruments. Or perhaps I have a rare virus from a faraway land. I’m cool with whatever, I just need to know. Straight from the horse’s mouth, although that analogy hardly seems fair because Dr. X is about the cutest little old doctor you ever met, mostly because you met him once before about 30 years ago.    

 

After work I met with Dr. A at her home on Druid Hill, and we sat in her backyard to review the results of my MMPI and donate blood to the local mosquito population. She requested clarification on some of my responses, as one might expect, and I told her about my oriole dream. I said I’d hoped I would sit down and she would deliver an unanticipated but resounding diagnosis from the test, a definitive direction for me to go. And as we chatted over my results, she did propose something quite poignant. Nothing from outer space, but certainly a rock that will likely get bigger as I try to turn it over. Discussing it there in a cool-rock-damp-moss-shade-oasis during a particularly hot stretch of a particularly hot season, I was ready for whatever Spirit handed me, and this felt like I was on to something. We haven’t spent much time talking about anger. Now I wonder if Dr. A has avoided proposing it before now for some good or interesting reason, which is exactly one of the pathologies my MMPI identified.  Ha!

 

I left Dr. A over 3 hours ago and now my OCD brain is literally running on empty (thanks, Dr. Jonice Webb, LOL) about my new journey into anger. Is this my bête noire? Is resolving this going to result in some significant breakthrough for me? Will my incessant itching finally go away? All after a crappy night’s sleep, an upset belly all day, and a full shift on a busy day at work. Besides writing this, I also took the time to update my health record just cause I’m an overachiever and I’m a poor judge of when to stop….good night.