Timeline: 09:53h 24 February 2017.
Believe me when I tell you that I have other things going on. Work. Family. Home. Money. Work. Health. Kids. Spouse. Friends. Interests. Work.
Did I mention Work?
But occasionally something happens that seems to fit in nowhere but here. So here goes.
I know that I am fairly normal. I know that. That said, I also have my quirks, but no more and no less, I am certain, than other human beings in and around my cohort [born 1960, still healthy—but pondering the concept of mortality, middle-class, average intelligence, east-coast born and bred, etcetera].
So, why, (why I say!) am I still having the occasional dream of being in and around my old high school—its hallways, inhabitants, idle and not so idle pastimes, real and imagined anxieties, overblown ups and downs, utter and complete boredom, excitements (such as they were), and that whole other…lifetime? Why?
It doesn’t happen often, but it happens more than I remember dreams of my time at, say...college. Or my years as a young urban professional. Or my early marriage, and fatherhood. Or being a young boy. I know these other times were meaningful, too. Life-forming. Episodic. Times of growth and learning. Happiness and sorrow. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. All of that. But weirdly, high school is the dreamscape that I somehow return to. And I want to know why. And I know that I can’t know why...
It’s not like they are even very interesting, as far as dreams go. Nothing much tends to happen most of the time. One semi-recurring theme, for example, is that I see my old teammates in the near distance, and it looks like there is going to be this amazing game of football with all of the old gang, and I can’t believe my good fortune, and I get set to go to them immediately...and I can’t find my shoulder pads, or I seem to be without pants, and I know I’m going to miss it.
Last night, this is what I dreamt: I was with Debbie, and Kenny, and Andy and Danny and Paul. Others, too. (These are high school friends, mind you. I do not see them down here on this earth plane, essentially, at all.) We arrived at the place, a room or pub or bar or something. We were late. Sitting at another table were Lori, and Kristie, and Billy, and the other Billy, and Tommy, and Johnny. Others, too. They all had their coats on, and one by one, they stood up to leave. And somehow I knew that we blew it, whatever it was, by arriving late. And I had that old and familiar sinking feeling, the perversely adolescent version, of “oh no, I blew it (again)”.
Why? |
