"I was shopping in Norwich--and you know there's nowhere to shop in Norwich--and I had all four of you girls with me, except you were little, 7, 6, 5, and 4, and I had Granny with me, and she was about 80. Then the car broke down--don't ask me how I had all of us in one car--and I called BDL, but his car had broken down too. Isn't that weird?" my mother asked.
"No, it doesn't sound weird. It sounds like you're worried about your responsibilities. You were more responsible for CLH and me when we were little than you have to be now, as you would have had to be for the German Shepherds, and you had to be more responsible for Granny when she was old than when she was 60. But you can't be responsible if the environment is bad and if the mechanics of your life are breaking down."
Meanwhile, I had an anxiety dream that I didn't tell her. Lots of people have naked anxiety dreams: vulnerability, embarrassment. Although I am clad, usually I have registered for a regular college courseload but somehow forgotten to attend one or more classes all semester long. If there's anything I can do to fix it, I cannot get to the right place in the right time to do so: there are ten minutes, and I keep getting distracted and I can't move fast enough. All of that is fairly obvious.
Last night I combined all the threads of my anxieties. I had attended some of my classes but I'd forgotten I'd registered for a couple. The usual "Can I withdraw? Will the professor show mercy, since I didn't perform badly but just forgot to go? Can I walk faster without someone asking me for directions?" antics ensued, this time in the altogether.
Later I realized that I'd been attending English and history and whatever other class--Women's Studies or poli sci--but had forgotten to attend anthropology and French. That's pretty easy to parse too.