'Carnaval' Sunday

Went to Breda to do some nice shopping, and totally forgot that the shops would be closed because of 'Carnaval', something hubby and I don't celebrate.  But ... I got my shot for today!  They were kind enough to pose and didn't even worry whether I would put it online or not.  I'll doubt they'll see this as we didn't even introduce ourselves to each other.  That checkered design is from the provincial flag of Noord Brabant.  I call it a tablecloth -- 24 red and white squares.  One day I will look up its origins.  The Belgian province of Brabant and the Dutch province of NBr used to be one but the Belgian Brabant flag is the one with the lion.  Oh well ...

Spent the day still in lazy mode but with slightly more energy than yesterday.  It was so nice to just sit ... and continue, advanced, to week 3 of the Critical Thinking MOOC.  I realize now that we hardly ever really use any critical-thinking tools, or we do but are not aware of their full potential.  I put this down to a general lack of time or energy, and anyway we do think critically in our own way but use short cuts in our reasoning.

Early this morning, I had a regression, in my sleep.  I actually relived the moment when I got separated from my real mum.  It was very real, in fact so real that I woke up tearful, desolate, and disoriented.  Regression is when ancient emotions, long buried in mental and emotional pits so deep that we have no more memory of them, suddenly, at an unguarded moment, rise to the surface, giving us the rare opportunity to recognize and acknowledge them, and then properly move on.  When I was undergoing therapy eight years ago, I received couselling on how to do this, but I realized that I didn't want to force it.  You can't force a memory to surface.  It will do that when you're ready.  I woke up thinking she was probably dead and that the rest of life wasn't worth living, waves of feeling that I knew would crash on the shore, leaving me where I already was, anyway -- back home here, safe and happy with hubby and living a nice, respectable life.  So I allowed myself to drift back to sleep, and, sure enough, after another two hours or so, I woke up again and I was okay.  Did the dream change anything?  Of course not, and it didn't have to.  It's simply about dealing with an emotion you didn't get the chance to deal with before.  So now, that's all sorted out, labelled, archived.  The End.