Dreams

I'm not the kind of person who takes much stock in things like fate, destiny, predestination, the coincidences of the world around us all being tied to a central tether and holding a significance that is so much greater than ourselves, and yadda yadda yadda. However, it just so happens that my own, personal dreams are directly related to my life, how I've lived it, and how it may be affected in the future. My belief in the meaning of my dreams is my guilty pleasure as it would apply to the world of psycoanalytics; my fleeting indulgence into fate. And so follows one of many dreams and dream interpretations.

Reality:
A few nights ago, after a particularly good walk home and compelling conversation with a new MFA-er who had been sitting behind me in Monday night class for the past two weeks, I felt the feeling. The feeling being what happens when I allow myself to think things about another person like, "I like the way his hair falls out of the bottom of his baseball hat," and "no matter how much I say that I think a Southern accent sounds uneducated, his is just so damn charming," and "I wonder if he's a good couch-cuddler." Now, this all sounds very "crushy" and "new-lovey" but my thoughts were not necessarily directed towards him. He was just the catalyst. We parted ways at the parking lot. He offered me a ride home and I said "Thanks, but I can make it faster on foot than it would take you to drive out of the lot." Still, the offer was nice and something about the entire situation resonated. I had no name for it and certainly didn't think about any implications.

It was 9:30 when I got home. I had been on campus since 9:00 in the morning and was exhausted. Bed and a book. The book was "The Last Street Before Cleveland" which, overall, is a memoir about depression and personal history, but I read the last fifty pages that night and they were full of redemption, love for God and love for family, particularly the narrator's love for his wife. The point: the memoir and my love-lined interaction with my new friend connected, took root in my brain, and bloomed into a dream. (And this is why I MUST take note of my dreams...I know I miss things every day. I gloss over meanings and bury truths in far-reaching synapses, so when they come out of my subconcious, I have to pay attention or I'll lose them forever.)

Dream:
It was high school. I was in a classroom with Jeremy. The setting was familiar: it was after regular school hours because there was only Jeremy, Julian, and I. It was dark in the room and the remaining chairs were upsidedown on desks. We were chatting and laughing like we actually used to do. God it felt comfortable. It was a conversation where I held on to every word because I was convinced that every word would be brillant - not because Jeremy was dispensing revolutionary or wholly original and awesome ideas, but just because I enjoyed watching his mouth move...the experience of being so in love with the person that it doesn't matter what they are saying or doing at the moment. All that matters is what you know of them and no matter how flawed, it's more than enough. It's a love born from respect; the best kind. Jeremy and I had shared that once, years ago.

The three of us sat and talked about relationships. Julian asked what went wrong with Jeremy and me. (We had been the couple that everyone envied--two people who existed as a unit instead of individuals.) I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer. I still don't. Jeremy looked right at Julian and said, "We were engaged, you know." I said, "Were not. Why do you say that?" And Jeremy replied, "We had this kiss, and it was the most meaningful kiss I've ever had in my life, and I remember thinking then 'I have to be with this person forever. This kiss means we will be together forever'."

Reality:
I woke up with those words reverberating in a morning fog and I felt content, warm, loved, desired. In a post-dream euphoria, I tried to force myself back to sleep to see what happened with me and Jeremy--did we embrace and forgive each other and work it all out--but I couldn't. As soon as I lost it, I desperatley wanted that feeling back. It felt like what withdrawal must feel like...when you know how something tastes and sounds and smells and how it can transport you to beauty in an instant but you know you can't have it. I went from euphoria to painful longing before my eyes even opened to the first light.


Still, I stayed in bed for a few minutes and indulged in what might have been.

Then, as now.

In my mind and in my mirror, I've been 22 for the past three years. The picture I conjure of myself in (increasingly frequent) introspective moments is not my current self. It's a picture of me when I was still an undergrad, just learning how to write, not concerned with practicality, aware only of the most present and immediate aspects of life: family, friends, school, work. If I consider how others perceive me, again, I consider how they perceive my 22-year-old self...my hair then, shorter and pulled tight; my attitude, present and affected; my ambivalence to the future. But, I know my picture of myself is not accurate. I'm aware of my 25-year-old self. I call my mother after a long road trip not just to please her but because I recognize concern and because I know that I would appreciate a call, too.

Since 22, birthdays have lost a sense of hope and accomplishment. They no longer offer the promise of anything unless it is something you have to earn. 16 provided a driver's license, 18 provided independence (although none of us really wanted to have it) and a few perks (which none of us had use for), 21 provided drinking, status, adulthood. Every year after was vague; they held no "sure things," no capstones, no celebration other than mere survival. Even the milestones like 30 and 40 seem either too far off, too indefinite, or too old to think about. After 21, everyone is left to their own schedules, adding tick marks on their timelines as they go: graduation, job, marriage, baby, etc, etc. My timeline was filled with things that happened, not things that I had really set out to accomplish. I graduated, needed to pay rent so I got a job, was frustrated by the job and beginning to feel trapped, went back to school for some time to figure it all out.

Now, I exist in this in-between space, a place that feels so much like 22 because of the academic calendar, the undergraduates trolling the halls and gym and bars, the wide-eyed quest for knowledge and the indisputable and temporary gift of creativity and craft as first priority. While I live here though, I must live within the boundaries: Rent, jockeying for and pumping quarters into the two washers and two (insanely inefficient) dryers in the laundryroom down the hall, heat paid by my landlord and therefore controlled by my landlord, conversations with academics who take themselves way too seriously.
These parameters are what makes me think of myself as I was three years ago. I know exactly how I've grown since then, what I've learned, what I've done, what I've experienced and all the ways that I have matured, but my gut reaction is always me as a 22 year old.

I'm more than half-way through my time here, which means I'm on the downslide, which means I've got to start thinking about the afterwards. I've got to start thinking of myself as 25 going on 26. I will be 26 when I graduate. Just four years from 30. I've created a timeline for myself, re-laid the tracks that kept me in line for so long and kept me looking ahead while fully aware of how far I'd come. The major tick on my new timeline, in bold, black Sharpie, is: first baby by 27. This implies a number of things: a job and a house and a husband; my second baby by 29. I would call these goals, goals that exist in the real-world. They hover just outside of the school bubble for everyone to see, but are distorted by the curve, like a finger in a fishbowl, present but foreign. But I feel my perspective sharpening and the closer I get to the future, the clearer it will be.