I packed up my ice skates to go skating today, but the cold was too intense for me. It penetrates right through my gloves and jacket. I don't mind when it's brisk or even cold, but there's a certain kind of cold that's not just an absence of warmth, but something aggressive, something that scares you in a way that's primeval. This is when it's -20, -30, with windchill. I camped in my pickup truck's bed during this type of weather twice, once in a blustery, snow-covered seasonal campground, parked behind a massive tower of stacked picnic tables. Twice that night, my nightmares were interrupted by the passing of a train on nearby tracks. It wasn't till the end of the second passing that I was able to place the sounds and lights of the mechanical giant as being that of a train.

My dreams that night were of sinister creatures that were anatomically wrong- one of my least favorite types of dreams. I know now that these "animals" in my dreams are the dysfunctional thoughts that I have that I'm most ashamed of.

I also had one of those "darkness" dreams--this one of travelling backwards in the truck bed down my own road, in the dark. The dreams are interminable and daylight seems impossibly far away. No one is available to help and light is scarce.

I saw my therapist today, again, for the first time since I had just turned 17. She is very smart... She accepted all of my wildness without so much as blinking. She doesn't believe that I'm delusional, which is a great start, I think. She quickly let me know that spiritual breakthrough is not limited in any way by age, and I felt a little embarrassed.