Skip to main content

There are some nightmares that just don't age with age...

It's not the one where you show up for work only to discover you have arrived there in your "birthday suit". And it's not the one where you're being chased by a madman down a dark street.

It's the one where you're back at school!

Last night that was my nightmare. I've had it many times over the past 40 to 50 years although it's never exactly the same. There are variations but they're variations on the same theme. This time I am my current age and I find myself re-connected with a childhood friend (in my nightmare she's in her twenties which really is an additional nightmare since I'm not!) Anyway, she convinces me to go to grad school with her. I don't know where the school is. We have to take a bus. Trouble starts. I can't seem to find the right coins to pay to get on the bus. And I'm all thumbs. Can't pull out right change. Meanwhile my friend disappears. The bus drops me off...I don't know where. I fstart walking through weird streets, passing strange people, getting convoluted directions. But finally, finally I arrive. And I spot my friend. She's got a paper in her hand - her registration material which includes her class schedule. She's happily on her way to her first class. I hurry to the registration office. There are a few young people there. More arrive after me. I keep getting shoved out of the way. I finally push my way through to the front. The young girl behind the desk looks up at me. "You're pretty old to be going to school. What are you majoring in?"

Shit, I haven't the foggiest. I don't even know what I'm doing there. But I'm feeling that I must have my registration material and get my class schedule or I'll be late for my first class. And that would be awful.

While I'm trying to figure it all out, this bitch tells me it's lunch time and the registration office is closed. I am furious. And anxious.

What to do! Wake myself up, of course. Which is exactly what I did.

But as I lay there in bed, I kept thinking - how old do you have to be to stop having nightmares about being back in school and having stuff always going wrong??? I didn't even have a bad time at school.

I know I'm not the only one. I share some of these school nightmares with friends and family and they have their own variations on the school theme. Really, enough is enough. I want to finally graduate!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Let's get rid of the "pipe" in pipe dreams!

I have had dreams of doing any number of things all my life. Either I or others were quick to label them "pipe" dreams. "Pipe" as in foolish, impractical, ridiculous? A lot of people my age have come to realize that dreams are not the stuff of foolishness. The other day I got an email from a neighbor/friend from my old town who'd discovered my blog. She told me she had started a new "cottage" business of selling greeting cards with her amazing photos on them. Here's her site because you all really should check out these very original cards - www.jgfischel.com It was a reminder to me that no matter our age, young, middle, older, oldest, we have the opportunity to dream new dreams, or capture old dreams and actualize them. We can stop identifying them as "pipe" dreams. I think many of us have spent a good portion of our adult lives  on being practical, cautious, and maybe feeling a little scared or a lot scared. Many of us stifled our cre

You can take the girl out of The Bronx, but...

Well, you know the rest. I have to confess for a long time I really tried to get rid of The Bronx. For a long time after that I thought I had. And for a long time I felt good about it. I'd escaped. No one could tell by my speech, my look, my style, etc. I used to love to hear, "You're from The Bronx? I'd never have guessed." And it's more than that. It's escaping a past that didn't fit in with my fantasy of who I wanted to become, who I wanted to be. It was an escape from a certain social class, an escape from parents whose customs, manners, interests felt alien to me - or maybe the truth was I wanted them to feel alien to me. I wanted to be my own creation!  But deep down I knew the truth. I knew it and it bothered me. I felt like there was really no escape. Not from The Bronx. Not from the lower income class that shaped me. Not from a mother who loved a bargain more than almost anything. And it bothered me. But lately something has changed. It&

Thank God you can pick your friends!

My husband and I are about to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of very special friends. We met Ted and Deanna 36 years ago and we've stayed strongly connected through a number of moves (ours not theirs), illnesses, life's many ups and downs. We've shared sad times and joyous times. We've traveled together, spent wonderful visits at each others' homes. I'm sure we must have shared thousands of meals together. Thousands of laughs. They've always, ALWAYS been there for us and we have always tried to be there for them. History. We have a deep and meaningful shared history. J. and I are  truly blessed to have a wonderful group of close friends and we value them all. But there are very few couples I've known and loved longer than this very special couple. You can't pick your blood relatives but thank God you can pick your friends. From the very first time we all met, J and I picked them. We were couples with young families. We were in the first dec