The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Last night I had a lucid dream, one of my favorites now. I will call this episode Stupid Lucid because it was particularly pointless, broke the fourth wall, and woke me up laughing.

In my dream, a few members of my family and some friends were standing around determining what our plans were for something, that part I can't remember because at that stage I was becoming aware of myself in the dream. Then this guy carrying a football walks up to our group and interrupts our conversation to show us how to properly throw a football. He instructs us on where the hands should be placed and the motion that goes into the throw while everyone in the group, including me, silently watched. Then he wished us a good rest of our afternoon and walked away. After a long moment of silence, someone in the group goes "Who was that??" and at that point the dream fully kicked me out and I woke up laughing.

Thank you, random football guy.

A new Year, another opportunity for me to change and adapt. It's not even a full seven days into this year and certain elements are repeating. The injured waif act is running like a fever through the women in my family, once again, so I wake up to emails claiming something must be wrong, or I am mad at them about something and I'm sitting here wondering what on Earth happened between giving hugs at Christmas to now?

It's the same neediness and helplessness I was raised on and I won't lie and claim I never repeat those echoes in my own life, so I know how easy it is to slip back into those patterns, especially when life is stressful. Ironically it is my own temptation to wail "I am the youngest one here, can you all stop bringing your issues to me?" instead of taking this how I ought to.

Life rarely presents easy calls to enforce boundaries, and doing so often brings about more drama from those seeking attention, so it can feel wrong or cruel to put yourself first in that way. That's what I'm struggling with this morning. When I feel guilty for not leaping to the rescue I tend to justify my reasoning to myself via anger. Anger is my shield, and god damn is it heavy and clunky. I don't need to be angry to have boundaries, yes I am baffled at the dysfunction and sometimes I still feel disappointed in my Elders for behaving this way, but I don't need anger.

Yes, I am disappointed in you that you have had all this experience and time on this Earth and this is the best way you can think of to reach out for connection. I am disappointed as hell that connection with you requires reassurance. I feel as though nothing I do is ever good enough, no replies I give you are enough, and no reassurances are enough, because you all have been feeding and tending to the abandonment wound. You women just won't grow UP. I feel like every time I manage to lift one of you up, another one has collapsed.

Internal rant out of the way, I don't need to or plan to express any of that to them because all it does is escalate the waif act. I've been here many times before. Now these notions of rescue, emotional collapse, demands for reassurance, they all look like things I've packed into boxes. They aren't in my way, they're stacked and labeled, I can choose to not unpack them.

Welcome to 2026!