A couple of my clients work in Corporate America currently. A world I escaped from 9 years ago. I still enjoy talking to people about business. There were parts of it that I enjoyed, but not the dishonesty, the pressure they tried to put on you to cover up illegal activity, and the way mergers/acquisitions were handled. I also did not like the climate of business where mergers and acquisitions could be expected no matter where you worked, and farming out jobs to other countries became the norm. I understand the business sense, but the way employees who were going to be laid off (often minimum wage people with no benefits never mind severance packages) were lied to and deceived. Those sorts of things chipped at my optimism and innocence daily in the last few years that I remained in Corporate America. I never plan on going back, as I enjoy my work helping canines and their families craft working relationships/partnerships. I think my time and energy are better spent there. It has it's challenges. For instance I am injured right now, so I can not do as much as I would like to physically, and have to save my energy for my private lessons. There are really no sick days for me, unless I am desperately ill. Vacation time can be challenging as well, even though it's my own business. However, I love it. I have very few days that I don't want to get up and seize the day!
It is interesting that just talking about my clients' experiences in their corporate world triggers bad dreams for me of the Corporate world. In those dreams, my Donors have appeared. In the one two days ago, Spermy called me at work, because he thought I was using my private checkbook to pay the corporations bills. This was not happening but he had gone through some of my stuff at his home and came to this conclusion. I just remember in the middle of a corporate environment screaming at him to leave me alone and that he was ridiculous.
Then this morphed into seeing both my donors enter my bosses office to talk about this. I am thinking that just by being so annoying and ridiculous that they are going to get me fired. I was thinking, who would want to have to deal with them that did not have to. I eventually corned Spermy and just remember screaming and swearing at him to get away from me and out of my life. Most of my dreams about Spermy are about being so angry that he is trying to insert himself in my life (unwanted) and in an unhelpful way yet again.
This weekend we had a visit from a dear friend. He also has issues with his family and his upbringing, although he has maintained contact. This discussion brought on yet another dream.
We are all (cousins, aunts, uncles, donors) living at my grandparents house, which is teeny tiny. Someone eats something gone bad in the refrigerator (which would never happen in my grandmothers house---she was a meticulous home maker). It is toxic and everyone starts turning into monsters that go to eat everyone else.
About that dream, I often wonder how my grandparents children (and my grandparents were not perfect by any means, but I knew them to be truly good people) could have turned out as cold and selfish as they seem to have. Eggy's side was obviously dysfunctional. But Spermy's side was dysfunction in a similar way to the sitcom "Everyone Loves Raymond". Not mirror image, but their dysfunction was funny many times. Also if you brought it up to them, they were people who could talk about that with you, and you could come to an agreement. It was never this way between me and my donors. A rational loving conversation, no way.
It seems now that I need one of these triggers before they sneak back into my head in late night nightmares. It's interesting how these two damaging and pressure filled periods of my life have seemingly joined up together in my dreams. Like my subconscious is saying "remember to always stay away".
