A good book, a great compliment, and bad dreams.

Intro

It’s been 5 days since I have had a chance to sit and blog.  I have been able to jot things in my notebook, but just never had the chance to write.  This blog, like the last one, is a collection of thoughts from the past 5 days.

A Good Book

I have a habit of going to that store and snapping pictures of books that I want to read in the future.  Every now and then I have to scroll through the many pictures on my phone to remember them.  I need to add them to my “Good Reads” app, so they are all in one place, but I never seem to find the time to do that.

My wife and I tend to read very different books. I read a lot of history themed books, as well as mysteries, thrillers, and biographies.  She reads more Jodi Picoult type stories.  I had received a Barnes and Noble gift card some time ago, and my wife and I took a walk through the store to see what I might want to spend it on.  While walking through the “New in Paperback” section, I saw one that caught my eye.

I have read a few books that used World War II and German Concentration Camps as a setting.  Some were true stories, some were fiction.  When I saw the book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I picked it up to read what it was about.

While the book is a novel, it is based on the true story of a man and woman who met and fall in love while imprisoned at the camp Auschwitz-Berkenau.  The author, Heather Morris, wrote the story after many interviews with Lale Sokolov.  The novel is based on his story.  After his wife, Gita passed away, he wanted to share his story.  The result was this book.

I read it knowing that it was a “fictionalized” version of their story.  The author stated that she wrote the story that Lale intended her to write.  Late last year, there was some controversy saying that there were things that were incorrect in the story.  The author again said that she wrote what he told her to write.  None of that takes away from a very powerful story of love and survival.  While I wished for more of an after story, I am excited to hear that there is a sequel due out next month based on one of the other characters in the book – Cilka’s Journey.  I will definitely be reading that one, too.

A Great Compliment

It’s always great to catch up with an old friend.  It’s even better when you catch up and can talk about the good things going on in your life, instead of the bad.  My friend and I last chatted shortly after I got remarried, so it had been a little while since we chatted.  I was able to talk about my newfound happiness, the positives and positive changes in my life, and, of course, the news that we are expecting a baby in February. After chatting for some time, my friend said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way.  I don’t mean to sound mean or rude, but it is like I don’t even know you anymore!”

How could I take this as mean or rude?  I knew exactly what my friend meant.  I was a different person, a couple years ago.  It always seemed like I was complaining when we talked.  I was forever venting about the misery and worry in my life.  I was in a very deep depression.  I was SO unhappy.  I was struggling with everything and anything.  I was blaming myself for so many things! I took the blame for almost everything.  I had given up.

“It’s like I don’t even know you anymore!”  No – you don’t!  I am NOT that person anymore.  I don’t focus on negatives.  There is a smile in my voice when I talk about my life.  I have been blessed with an amazing soul mate who has changed my life in so many ways.  I don’t think you are mean or rude – instead, I thank you for the amazing compliment.  A compliment which proves that it’s not just me who sees the positive changes in my life – it’s others, too!

“When someone pays you a compliment – don’t disagree.  Accept it with grace, and most importantly, BELIEVE what they say!”

Bad Dreams

It has been some time since I have had a nightmare.  Last night, I had a few!  I probably should have wrote them all down, because I have forgotten some of them.  I know I woke up at least 6 times in a 7 hour period.  With every wake up, I got more and more annoyed.

I often try to think about why I dreamt about something.  Sometimes, I can make a connection to something from the previous day.  For the life of me, I have no idea why I dreamt about what I did.  In the first dream, I was standing in a house looking out a window.  I was staring outside at an older car, possibly a Chevy Caprice.  Someone is standing next to it about to break into it or something and I am trying to yell out the window – I was doing everything I could to try to scream something at the person – but I could not make a sound.  I woke up in the middle of those non-existent screams.  I had only been asleep for about an hour.

In one dream, I am watching TV and I hear gunfire outside.  The windows around me begin to shatter as bullets break through them.  On the TV, I see the house I am in (it’s not my current one) on the news with “Breaking News” about a standoff in a local neighborhood.  I can see police outside the one side of the house and when two men jump through the window into the house I woke up.  (This dream may have stemmed from a radio show I heard on my way home.)

The final dream I remember involved me being chased by someone.  I don’t even know why I was being chased.  It was weird because the scenery around me changed often.  I started running through a neighborhood.  I then was running on a dirt road, through a shopping mall, and eventually I was running on the beach.  As I was running through the sand, I could feel myself sinking deeper into the sand until I couldn’t move my legs.  I was struggling to get my legs and feet out of the sand and they wouldn’t budge.  I woke up with Sam’s leg on top of mine.

On days where I have to work, I hate when I keep waking up.  I only had two cups of coffee last night and I was done with them by 3am.  I hadn’t eaten anything out of the ordinary (which has led to weird dreams in the past) and was tired enough that I should have been able to sleep right through.  I didn’t.  I know better than to let it bug me, because the more you focus on how you need to sleep, the more it keeps you awake (at least that is the way it works for me).  Hoping that tomorrow’s sleep is a whole lot better.