Dreams

Thoughts on High-Functioning Anxiety and the Inevitability of Spring

The other night I dreamt the trees were all filled with tiny, new, bright green leaves. In the dream, I marveled at how suddenly they had appeared, I suppose because spring so often feels tardy up in Michigan. In the same dream—or maybe it wasn’t the same, who can tell—I looked up at an enormous black sky studded with more stars than I have ever seen. And I marveled at that.

I can’t tell you how rare it is for me to marvel at something in a dream. Or to have a dream that is not, in some way, anxious. Normally, in my dreams, I am trying to get somewhere or accomplish something or see something and my efforts are endlessly frustrated by others or thwarted by circumstance. I am always trying, never accomplishing. Which may seem odd for someone who actually has successfully completed a lot of stuff and gets a lot of joy out of accomplishment.

So to have this pleasant dream of green spring leaves and sparkly white stars is a nice change of pace. And though I am not one who thinks that all dreams have some deeper meaning that can be deciphered if only we know what symbolizes what, I do think this particular dream might mean something about my own psyche. It might mean that whatever underlying anxiety I have (high-functioning though it may be) is lessened of late. And I think, perhaps, that’s because I am feeling so much better about my work.

I told you last month that, after 24 years with the same company, I have started a new chapter in my work life. Now I’ve been at this new gig for about six weeks. And at the end of every day, when my husband or son asks how my day was, I can honestly and enthusiastically say, “Great!” And if they don’t ask, I tell them to ask, so I can say, “Great!”

In the more recent past, I would not have been able to say that. In fact, from at least August to December of 2025, if you asked me how my day went, you’d probably get a “fine.” If you pressed me, even a little, you’d get an earful. Always about a particular person and his particular idiocy and ineptitude and ignorance, and how all of those things were affecting my job, my livelihood, my mental health, and my happiness. And really, that gets old after a while, both for the one listening to it and the one talking about it.

When I weighed the pros and cons of moving on from a job I had once liked at a company I had once loved, my husband pointed out to me that my discontent had actually started a lot earlier than last August. It had started the February before that, when my boss was suddenly fired. And before that, when our longtime president and CEO retired and they picked his successor (who is the one who fired my boss).

All of that had come just before my father’s sickness and death, and just after my father-in-law’s sickness and death, which in turn had come on the heels of the pandemic and all of the stress and anger and disruption of that time. So yeah, things had been hard, sometimes really hard, for five years.

Those five years were also full of the joys and the very real stress of writing and launching a book a year. They were years of pretty constant speaking and teaching and giving interviews and writing articles and blog posts and creating social media content and all the rest of it. Add that all to working full time at a place that looked less and less like the place you had once been excited to work, and yeah, all that stress had to come out somewhere. As I try not to take out my stress on other people and I don’t self-medicate with booze or anything like that, I guess it came out in my dreams.

But now? I am dreaming of green spring leaves and oceans of stars. I’m also dreaming about work, about my new job, and those dreams are not stressful. They’re dreams where I’m getting things organized and coming up with ideas and following through on leads. They’re dreams where I feel good and calm and productive.

It’s a nice little internal confirmation that I made the right choice. Now, I’m not naïve enough to think my new job will not also be stressful sometimes. But the fundamental problem I had when I decided I needed to start looking for a new job last year is not a problem I believe I will have with my new job. And I believe this because I asked the right questions at the interview and because I have already taken steps to make sure that the issue I had with the one guy who was steering the proverbial ship into an oncoming iceberg at my old job is one that will not be tolerated. As Editor in Chief, I can do that, and I have the full support of the rest of our staff.

Now, you may have noticed that I’m being a bit vague about exactly what it was that made me leave, exactly what it is that I will not tolerate. My last post hinted at it, and I don’t want to belabor it, because that’s not really what this post is about. I’ll probably talk more about it at some point, maybe on my Substack for writers, Experimental Wolves. (Actually, I talked a lot about it over there when I was in the midst of it, but I’ve since removed that post—I am considering reframing it a bit and posting it in the future, bit we’ll see.)

Anyway, the point is that I’m really happy right now. I love my new job. My agent loves my new novel manuscript (more on that later). I feel like we have a handle on all of the prep leading up to getting my son off to college in the fall. I deep cleaned the kitchen. I’m nearing the end of a painting I started a year ago that has been on my easel ever since. Things are moving forward in positive directions in most corners of my life. And I’m enjoying it.

It’s still February up here in Michigan. Even though we’re in the midst of a string of “false spring” days in the 40s and 50s, it’s still way too early for the trees to push out their new green leaves. That won’t happen until April. And next week, it’ll probably snow.

But spring is coming. It is inevitable. In some ways, I feel like it’s already here.