You're Doing Just Fine
A dream about running, the Middle Way, and slightly hard things
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Last night, I had a dream I was out for a run in a suburban neighborhood — not exactly like mine but with a similar feel in that way dreams have. I was jogging along when I noticed a group of women walking in front of me, a ways up. This was a group I know, or knew, in real life.
Back when we first moved to this part of town, a new friend had put together this group very intentionally, for dinners and such, thinking we were all like-minded, or at least that she liked us all.
I never felt, I realize in retrospect, like I fit with this group, but I was looking to make friends, so I stuck around, taking myself to girls’ nights I didn’t really want to go to for longer than was advisable. I noticed a curious thing; I enjoyed spending time with them one-on-one. When I ran into them at a soccer game or such, the interaction would leave me smiling. But when the group was together, either just the women or with our spouses, I felt a little…off, uncomfortable, awkward in a way I couldn’t put my finger on.
Eventually, Jason and I stopped attending this group’s outings because, despite the potential, we both felt like we didn’t quite fit there. We’d gone to so many of them because it was an “almost.” I almost felt right there, and for a long time, chalked it up to simply the standard awkwardness of getting to know new people, but it never went away. Much later, I would find out the group wasn’t all that enamored with us, either, so perhaps the awkwardness I was picking up on was disguised hostility.
In the dream, I was slowly catching up to the group of women as I jogged. I was approaching that awkward moment when you’re moving only slightly faster than the person in front of you and trying to decide whether or not to pass them. Trying not to linger in their backdraft, breathing your hot air on their neck.
I upped my pace just a little above what was comfortable to pass, and as I did, I heard them talking about me, jeering, poking fun. When I was about 30 yards in front of them, I twisted around, still running, grinned the most shit-eatingest grin, and shot them the finger. I kept running.
I looked at the ground to my right and, for a moment, panicked. It appeared as if that ground were stationary in my vision, as if I were not moving at all, despite my pumping legs. Then I shifted my gaze slightly in front of me and could see and feel the motion again. It was all a matter of perspective to notice I was moving forward, making progress.
I rounded a curve, chose a path in this familiar niche of neighborhood that I hadn’t taken before. I knew the group of women wouldn’t follow. They would go the more well-worn path, the one I used to stay on. And they did. I ran on.
Sitting in my backyard this morning, I was contemplating this dream; it’s meaning. It’s not really about those almost friends I didn’t make ten years ago. It’s about self assurance and the Middle Way.
My approach to the group in front of me — a slightly uncomfortable challenge, a small bump in my road.
My accelerated pace — a little bit of extra effort, not the killing kind.
Their negative talk about me — my own negative self talk that holds me back from time to time.
My extended middle finger — reassurance, myself to myself, that I am doing just fine. I trust myself.
A venture into the slightly less familiar — I don’t have to go to an exotic land or the ends of the earth to discover and explore, just nudge myself out of my well-worn grooves a little bit.
I ran into one of the women from that group not too long ago, irl. It had been many years since I saw her last. I called her by name. I said “hi” and moved on. Her face, in those few moments of recognition, looked…uncomfortable maybe. This was not what she had expected, to have me pop up in her field of vision suddenly at a crowded school function. I noticed. That’s all.
My brain used this meeting, now months ago, to explain something mostly unrelated, while I was in that receptive state of sleep in which visual metaphor makes the most sense.
It was also prompted by a workout — one that has always seemed like obligation to my health and well-being that felt, yesterday, like FUN. The movements made me smile. The instructor’s genuine enthusiasm and encouragement buoyed me. At one point, a little over halfway through, I realized I had yet to rest, stop mid exercise to catch my breath, as I always do. I wondered, with a little extra effort, just a little, could I make it to the end without stopping?
I did.
It wasn’t even that hard.
It was just a little uncomfortable for a little bit of time.
I am twenty pounds heavier than when I used to do this workout and couldn’t dream of getting through the whole thing. It seems there is a substantial mental aspect to how hard something is, even a thing that feels mostly physical. Hmmm.
There are some things I’ve been unable to get myself to do lately. Number one is finish the book I’m working on. This work-in-progress is different. It is based on my friends’ professional-level haunted house they lovingly, painstakingly assemble for Halloween every year. So there is an element of obligation, of people relying on me, with this one that I haven’t felt with my creative writing before. And there is a part of me, I realized, after waking from this dream, that is holding me back from finishing it. There is a subtle, self-critical part, that quietly sneaks in negativity that I can barely hear but absorb all the same.
You won’t finish it.
It’s too hard.
And it’s going to suck anyway.
You’re going to let everyone down.
THAT is why it is hard. That is why opening that particular WIP and typing a few sentences feels so, so heavy. Because the part of me that kind of an asshole, like that gaggle of women in my dream, thinks it’s protecting me. It’s the “If you don’t try, you won’t fail” variety of protection that I’ve been working to disassemble and free myself from for a while.
I have sensed the roadblock ever since I started working on this project. It is one of several I have worked through. And now, hopefully, since I’ve recognized this one finally (thank you, sleeping brain) I can allow it to fall away, clear the path, or at least reduce it to a small bump, a petty group of people, I can pass with just a little extra acceleration.
This is what I believe my mind does for me in my dreams. It takes the disparate pieces of my experience — a small workout revelation, an uncomfortable experience ten years ago — and assembles them like performance art to show me what I need to see. It uses those familiar memories to reveal something profound about myself, something I already know, that needs to be brought to the surface for me to move forward. All I have to do is notice, reflect, (and maybe write 700 words about it) when I wake.
All those years ago when I needed friends and discovered I’d been barking up the wrong tree of people, I finally let it go. Decided the shoe, despite how attractive it was, did not actually fit all that well and was making my bunions ache. I found other friends, organically, and because I was open to them and they to me, it didn’t feel so awkward, even in the getting-to-know-you phase.
I can have that same feeling with a workout, with a half-written haunted backstory, with a run through a familiar yet unfamiliar landscape. What my brain, my self, my soul — whatever — let me know in that dream, was what it takes: relaxing into who I am, self-assurance, and, when it counts, a little extra effort.
My mantra these days is not “Go hard or go home.” When I start to feel a little anxious about my choices, my abilities, I tell myself “You’re doing just fine.” And then my shoulders come out of my ears, I take a deep breath, and I smile. Because what that means to me is that I do not have to try so hard, second-guess everything, hold onto everything with a tight grip. I can trust myself. I have a keen intuition when I get it out from under all the defensive onion layers of my psyche, and I have a lot of accrued wisdom over my half-century on this planet.
With that letting go, the reassurance that I am, in fact, doing just fine, I release the space and time the worry occupied and suddenly, easily, the energy is there to do the slightly hard thing that I really, actually want to do.
So thanks, brain. I appreciate your help. Because I am. I am doing just fine.
P.S. After I wrote this, I finished the haunted house manuscript!! (This is a rare moment when I feel more than one exclamation mark is called for.) It is very rough and will require a ton of editing, probably a full-on rewrite, but for now I’m going to laurel rest awhile.
This piece is the quiet reassurance we all need but rarely hear—not as empty platitude, but as permission to release the invisible weights we insist on carrying. Your words don’t just comfort; they create space for the unspoken relief of being enough as-is. The kind of writing that feels less like advice and more like a friend’s hand on your shoulder at exactly the right moment.