I had a dream last night that I was fighting in a war. All the people on my side were in this huge wooden thing, kind of like those wooden building-ish things that cover your head at camp sites. I looked at everyone in my wooden thing, and people were lying up on tables bleeding. Some of the women were clutching babies. Some of them were already in body bags. One lady, who was holding a baby, broke out of her body bag. I don't know what this signified. Then everyone began rushing forward to go out to war again, and I struggled to get to the back to avoid getting hurt. But people were coming forward so fast and so roughly that they were pushing me forward, and before I knew it, I was on the battlefield, too. But at the last second, before I got hurt badly, I made it back into the wooden thing. At that point I ran into my cousin, Tony. He was at the back of the wooden thing, too. I hugged him and told him I loved him. And then I made fun of myself for being too much of a chicken shit to get out in the field. He told me it was okay, and then he left me to go fight. And I remember thinking that it was a lot like dodgeball at Badin. I'd always stand at the back in dodgeball, too. As a result, I'd be one of the last people left, though, so I'd be forced to fight. So I was kind of defeating my purpose. Right before I fell asleep last night, I wrote in this journal I hadn't written in for over a year. Everyone gives me journals, so I end up writing in all of them, and it gets all crazy. The last few journal entries brought back BAD memories. But they were also the same bad feelings I was feeling last night. I think I must feel the same bad feelings all the time...and this was almost 2 years ago. Anyway, I was feeling really bad before I went to bed because I just feel really...out of control. Things are really bad with my mom right now. And I was trying to talk to my brother Dave about it...yet he kind of was sticking up for mom in a way, not really in a way that was saying, "You are wrong, Jeannie," but in a way that was saying, "We are her children, and we need to respect her." I'm going to try. I'm going to try to be the perfect, kind daughter. Maybe that's what I'm here to do...make her last few years painless ones. I don't know if I'm up for that challenge. Anyway, when one bad thing happens in my life, I let it carryover into all other portions of my life. I don't know why I do this. I hate that about me. Furthermore, if I fail at one thing in my life, I say "Screw it. I'll fail at EVERYTHING then," and I no longer try to succeed in anything anymore. I wrote an ugly, ugly journal entry in my journal last night. I wrote things that I've always thought about myself but have never brought to paper before. It was scary, yet cathartic. Maybe those feelings and that entry were what brought that scary dream on. I wonder if I always take the easy way out in life (i.e. run to the back when everyone else is fighting the war).

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