Dark Parables: Dream of key and chain

I dreamed I had gotten married to a man I recently met. At first I was afraid for him to see my house and my housekeeping skills. But he must have accepted my messiness because he married me. The time came for me to meet his parents. I was particularly afraid of my new mother-in-law. I gave his mother several photo albums to look at, and showed her my former husband's family relation...th eKennedy's. I was trying  to impress her although the photo was taken of a reflection of a Kennedy matriarch in a window. I shook out the dust of the album before giving them to her because i was afraid of dust and dust mites and cockroaches falling out on her. After I gave her the albums, she looked then she held up a door key (maybe a magnetzed key, but a heavy looking key)  and she showed me a dark brown chain. Heavy but not super-heavy.. I said to her, "Where did those come from? I gave you those?" I had accidentally given them to her without knowing it. I felt so stupid because I thought I had given her only the photo albums. Bu there she was holding these things that were un-necessary for her to  like me and just plain weird.

The woman vaguely reminded me of my own mother-in-law...a woman I avoid very much. I was aware of having had a bad mother-in-law so I wanted this new marriage to be better and to have this particular mother-in-law like me. But I had given her a key and a brass or iron link chain. That's what I remember...the dark brown of the key and the chain. Sometimes we unwittingly give someone the key to our lives as well, and they are able to chain us too because we've given them the secret to destroying us. The last dream I had about three or four or five weeks ago also had keys...but those were given by a man to me and my husband to open a door. Then the dream ended. Strange that the key motif should pop up again. BTW, in life we aren't key people, my hubby and me.

Yesterday, I went to the realtor and I was upset with myself for telling them exactly what was wrong with the house and how much I might sell the house for. I was upset with myself for not playing the game because realtors like pretending they're your friends but selling a house is really business...and one has to be careful. So I was mad at myself for that. And I'm generally angry at myself for being "real" in this town because so many folks are not "real" and I seem like a nut or an innocent sometimes when I talk with them. Another reason why I'm a recluse.... the people in the world terrify me by the way they judge us...by the class, status they put on us, by the way they compare us to themselves.

In the dream I spent so much time trying to give a good "picture" to this woman who was my future mother-in-law. And yet I missed some of the presentation and accidentally slipped up by giving her the key and letting her see the chain (to trap me, or what I use to trap myself or to trap others.) Whatrever it is, it definitely shows that we can plan and plan and try to show one picture of our lives....but the way a thing falls out and what people perceive about us is not under our control. We "leak."

I suspect we just have to be ourselves, without guile because we are unable to hide our guilelessness anyway. We show people the key to ourselves, we show them ways to bind us. We chain people to ourselves or attempt to chain people to ourselves by giving them what we think will please them. We  never really know what people think of us...so what's the use anyway? In the end, we can only be ourselves...and if the world thinks we're innocent, or foolish, or evil, or vain.... Only God's opinion matters. Jesus wants us to live lives without guile. We must be wise yet harmless as doves... and let others judge and interpret us as they wish.