Nightmares, Snuggle Duds and Lost Wallets
I was restless and had already been up once the other night, fitful sleep being a more familiar companion the past couple of nights where here at my sanctuary in AZ, I should be sleeping like a baby. What’s up with that?
About 12:30 am on Thursday morning I woke up from a particularly disturbing dream and decided to get up, wander around a bit, look at the stars and the silver slivered moon hanging in the crystal-clear blackness of the night sky. When I finally crawled back in bed about 1:00 am, I had no desire to go back to sleep as the images of the ‘nightmare’ were still playing in the recesses of my mind. So, TV it is, although in hindsight, I might have gotten a few more chapters of the interior edit for Get Off the Shelf done. Nope, mindless, silly TV shows and a good Hallmark movie later, I rolled over to see the clock flashing 3:33 as I closed my eyes.
Funny that little energy bug “Fear”, how it gnaws away at your innards and creates sleepless nights remembering all the crap you want to forget. I was afraid of a dream that reminded me of previous dreams, and I wasn’t going there, nor was I going to feed that dragon in the dark, so I stayed awake until I could fall asleep without thinking.
The next day was understandably, not very productive. Email done, a few deep dives down those proverbial cyber rabbit holes had me pulling myself back to GOTS (Get Off the Shelf) and getting a paragraph here and a chapter there done.
Yawning, getting chilly as the sun set, I decided to get into my comfy clothes, heat up some yummy soup. I gifted myself the evening without an agenda and settled in for the night. The edits could wait another day.
My sweet neighbor had given me some “snuggle duds” as she calls them. I pulled them out of the bag and tossing my jeans and sweatshirt on the bed, I climbed into what I will call, comfy duds. Warming up my chilled body, I pick up my jeans to hang them up and there’s something awry. They don’t “feel” quite right.
“Yikes,” I actually screeched out loud, “my wallet is gone.” I had been out to a late lunch with a friend and straight home. I called the restaurant. It was their closing time and Brandon assured me that he would thoroughly check the booth we had been in as soon as this last patron left. I was sure I had come straight home ‘til I saw the envelopes laying on the kitchen counter and realized I had stopped at the neighborhood postboxes to pick up my mail and the neighbors. That ol’ not so welcome companion “Fear” came crawling up my throat.
I got a flashlight, walked across the street, and looked all around my neighbor’s driveway and porch hoping it had fallen out of my pocket when I dropped off her mail and picked up the snuggle duds. No such luck.
Back at the house, I got in my car and drove out to the edge of the neighborhood where the mailboxes were planted roadside, all the while knowing it was probably a fruitless effort,
Nonetheless, a needed one, I searched. I know that our mail lady comes around four and I remembered seeing the car clock reading 3:33 (hmmm…) when I left the restaurant as I had a 4:00 o’clock call to be on. I hoped she found it and put it in my box, no luck.
Since I’m out in the car now, 8:15 pm or so, I drove back to the restaurant and searched the parking lot. Still no luck and still no word from Brandon who assured me he would call with good or bad news when his customers left.
“You’re never gonna find it, what a nice present someone has. Give it up,” that irritating voice on my shoulder whispered. I sat in the nearly empty parking lot and called all the businesses surrounding it and left messages or talked to clerks but again, no luck.
On the drive home I was tormented by that damnable “Fear”, he just wouldn’t back off. “What are you going to do, you have no money, no ID, no credit cards?” he cackled, and I vehemently replied out loud to myself, “No worries you jerk, leave me alone. I have my stash in the car and in my house diary book back home.”
That didn’t stop him, it only fueled his incessant chatter. “Which credit cards and ATM cards do you think will get used first? Just think what your hubby is going to say when he finds out for the third time in as many months, that your credit card is compromised.”
“I’m not going to tell him,” I retorted knowing full well he would have to know eventually since I would have to cancel everything. Here I sit in a dark car, in a dark parking lot, talking out lout to myself. I held out a glimmer of hope in the face of “Fear’s” unrelenting banter, that a kind soul would call tomorrow when they figured out how to find this CA wallet’s owner in AZ. And, I began to make plans, lists of who to call, what was in my wallet, what would need to be replaced, and began to release the hope of finding it.
I began to formulate a plan: I would call my sister in CA. She could go out to my office and get some things I would need. I had a spare credit card there and my old driver’s license in a drawer in my desk. She could FedEx them to me for next-day delivery and if I monitored the cards online and there was no unauthorized activity, I might just get away without the demon “Drama” jumping into the ring with “Fear”, and then I’d figure out something to tell hubby.
The phone rang. It was Brandon at the Blu Burger and unfortunately, he didn’t have good news. He had searched all the booths, not just the one where I had been. No wallet. I thanked him for getting back to me and he replied, “Best of luck and Happy New Year.”
“Bah humbug,” I thought. After last week’s roller coaster of emotions, this week I get to play with “Fear” and “Drama” for a while. I drove home deflated, even stopping at the mailboxes again in hopes that I had missed something, or someone found it and just took the cash and tossed it in the bushes. I’d call that wishful thinking, but then, don’t those wishes sometime come true? It can happen to you, right?
Adrenaline pumping from the frantic search, I called my friend and relayed the story of my pitiful plight. Guess I can get a couple more chapters edited now, I’m certainly warmed up and wide awake as the clock approaches 11:00 pm.
Earlier in the evening, I had turned the heat lamp on in the bathroom. It is so much nicer to climb into a warm shower in a warm room than it is to shiver my way into the shower and wait for the hot water to warm up my quaking limbs. Now I figured the shower could wait til morning. I opened the door to turn off the lights and what do you suppose laughed up at me from the vanity? Yep, my wallet. All I could do was laugh. I couldn’t even connect energetically to when I laid it down there. Had to be when I was thinking about a shower and trying on those snuggle duds.
Isn’t it crazy, how “Fear” grows disproportionately to our actual reality, when we lose all sense of ourselves in panic mode? That tiny flicker of anxiety, fanned by “Fear”, grows in one’s belly as it slowly develops into a full-blown drama?
I partnered right up with that sneaky bug “Fear” head-on, by going a bit bonkers. Walking around in the dark, driving around in empty parking lots and stalking mailboxes all while those few frightening scenarios played out in my head. I didn’t sit and stew, but I sure wish I had made that trip to the bathroom an hour or so sooner.
I called Brandon right back and gave him my good news. Bless his kind heart. His response was, “Here I had just wished you best of luck and you got it. Have a great evening.”
I am once again bolstered by our youth. This young man, I doubt he was thirty yet, had gone out of his way to look for my not so lost wallet, and call me back and wish me luck and was graciously happy for me when I called him back.
God bless the kids, just like the young lady in the bank last week, there is good in our world. Let’s shine our lights on it, shout it out to the world. I will write to Brandon’s boss tomorrow and tell him what a wonderful employee he has in that young man.
Faith restored in human nature and “Humor” sitting here with me as I wrap up this unusually long note to you all, I am feeling, silly, blessed and most happy to have my little wallet snuggly tucked back in my pocket.
Good night you all and Sweet Dreams. May only sugar plum fairies dance in bright meadows through your night tonight.
***
“Get my Free Gift Living An Intentional Life”
Vicki Dobbs is a bold and adventurous warrior walking a path of heart to manifest spirituality in everyday lives. She opens existential gateways for individuals to face their challenges and embrace these tests as the great teachers that they are.
Her goal is to see everyone walk in beauty and balance every day of their lives empowered by the voice of their own authentic truth.
Through Wisdom Evolution and Sacred Wisdom Workshops, Vicki creates opportunities for others to make deep personal changes through experiential classes, ceremony, sacred art and story. She endeavors to inspire others to create their lives intentionally. Vicki is an Inspirator of everyday awareness, an Instigator of spontaneous stories and a Connoisseur of Creativity. Gratitude and grace sprinkled with humility and humor are the medicine she brings to the world.
As an Elder, Teacher and Entrepreneur, Spiritual Coach, Ordained Minister and Crafter of Sacred Art and Tools, Vicki perceives life’s journey as an ever-upward spiraling ascension of the human spirit leading her to wisdom, wholeness and authenticity.
Her experience includes being trained in the Harner Method of Shamanic Counseling and the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition of Cross Cultural Shamanism. She is a Graduate Teacher and Mentor with the Lynn Andrews Center For Sacred Arts and Training and has been the Administrator and Writers Guide for Writing Spirit, the School.
Vicki is also an Artist of the Spirit Certified Spiritual and Energetic Life Coach, a Graduate Mentor in the AoS program and a founding member of HeatherAsh Amara’s Warrior Goddess Leadership Team and Facilitator of the Warrior Heart Practice.
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