Dude, I Met My Animus

First of all, I swear I’m not going crazy. I just have a lot of time on my hands. I mean, the 3 hours per day when I’m not at work or dog-walking or cleaning or returning calls from my worried family (but she’s alone! She has no man! She has no friends! She must need us!). But I was introduced to my animus last night. And then burned two candles in honor of him, because it turns out he has two faces.

Apparently, I’ve (or, you know, my unconscious) been waiting my whole life for Jungian dream analysis. And not only have I met my animus (one side of whom happens to be English and very attractive—or at least last night, this was his form), but I’ve met my shadow self. It turns out that all of the people milling around in my dreams are actually representations of me. And my shadow has chosen to come to me in the form of Choad’s girlfriend, which is wicked strange and off-putting. But actually makes sense. And Choad himself is one side of my animus. But they’re all me. There is a huge party going on in my soul, and I’ve gotten pretty good in the last few years at ignoring what most of them have to say.

I get freaked out occasionally by how deeply involved I am with my dreams. But I do believe that it is just as unhealthy for me to spend all of my time in the external world. I mean, for one thing, I'm a poet. And the inner world is pretty amazing. The symbolism alone is enough to make any English major giddy for weeks. And fortunately I have a really amazing therapist who is guiding me through a lot of this. The cool part is that once I start listening to my dreams and actively try to make them a part of my waking life, they’ll probably quiet down some. And I won't feel as nuts in the land of people walking around and doing stuff. But there is too much yelling going on in them right now to ignore them anymore.

Anyway, see you guys later. I’m going back into dreamland…