My anxiety is a silver box full of shoes
A personal essay about a dream I had last night, and why we hold on to old relics from past lives
I don’t have recurring dreams as such, but I do have recurring themes when I dream. Last night, I dreamt that we were leaving for a trip: we were at my parents’ house, hurriedly packing things into suitcases. I was losing track of all the different bags I had, desperately trying to remember which bag had which specific collection of belongings in it through the foggy haze that often accompanies my dream state.
As we were packing things into two different cars, I realised that I had far more stuff than was appropriate for a holiday, including a big silver box from my childhood bedroom filled with shoes that I couldn’t possibly carry through an airport; it had no handle or lid, for god’s sake. The shame of taking up so much space burned in my stomach as I watched my dad trying and failing to fit bags bulging with clothes and hardback books into the car boot.
Somehow, everything eventually fitted and we got into the car. I had the palpable sinking feeling of being unmoored, of leaving home with belongings that you’re not supposed to have and knowing that you’re going to be denied access to wherever you’re going. I wanted to scream, “Stop the car! STOP THE CAR! I have to go back!” but I had reverted back to my child self who never felt secure enough to make mistakes, whose worst nightmare was to cause a fuss. I was terrified of my father’s reaction if I did ask to go back, if I admitted my wrongdoing.
I woke up as I was checking my bag for my passport, its royal blue and gold hues glinting in the brake lights of the car ahead of us as everything swayed and swerved away from my field of vision.
It’s Sunday morning as I write this, and I felt compelled to get this particular dream down on the page before it fades away from my consciousness, as dreams tend to do. It’s a recurring theme that shows up in my sleeping and waking hours; the idea of being too much, taking up too much space, not being allowed to make silly mistakes or be human.
The humbling truth is, I hold myself to such an impossibly high standard that even my dream self cannot think of anything worse than getting it wrong. I have never really had dreams that play out in a fantasy world where anything can happen; oh, no, my dreams are concocted of events that could and sometimes have happened in my real life. They are terrifyingly real, often amplifying the anxieties that I experience in my day to day life, leaving me on edge and irritable for the rest of the day. My dreams take on a sense of lucidity and vivid normalcy that is scarier than any ghoul or ghost or tall imposing figure wearing a top hat and a mask.
I’m reminded of a journal entry I wrote a few years ago, when I was first dating my partner James. I remember feeling incredibly anxious and desperately trying to hide it from him, because it was early days and I wasn’t sure if I could trust him with my whole, unfiltered self. I was wrong. From that very first date in July 2021, he held my delicate heart with the kind of gentleness, kindness and deep understanding that I had always thought was the stuff of dating myth and legend. He sensed my anxiety, asked if we could set aside time to talk about it, and then listened intently and with total focus on me and what I was experiencing.
Over the years I have had many a meltdown because I made a mistake or didn’t live up to my own expectations, flying into a fit of internal panic because I couldn’t bear the thought of James seeing the part of me that is clumsy and uncoordinated and doesn’t always think things through. I didn’t want to be anxious around him, I wanted to be vivacious and fun and full of life; but I couldn’t be that version of myself all the time, and as the years passed and James showed me time and time again that he accepts me wholly and without exception or expectation, I relaxed into a more honest way of being.
It’s clear to me now that, for want of a better/less clumsy metaphor, the silver box full of shoes in my dream represents the heavy weight of the anxiety and pressure to be perfect that I carry every day. I drag that damn box with me everywhere, shoes tumbling out of it because it doesn’t have a lid or a handle, cumbersome and bulky as I wedge its hard plastic edges under the crook of my arm. It’s a relic from my childhood that has no place in my adult life, yet I am inexplicably attached to the familiarity of those destructive thought patterns.
As I embark on a new decade, I am slowly shedding some of the weight of the box, but there is always more work to be done. My relationship with James has been more healing, and at times deeply confronting, than I could have ever expected. He challenges my own limiting beliefs and very gently forces me to rethink old patterns, and without that constant source of encouragement I wouldn’t be where I am today.
I’m trying. I will get there.
What is your ‘silver box’? What old relics do you carry around with you?