While getting dressed for work and listening to the Today show this morning in the background, I thought about how different life used to be. How drastically life changes. How drastically we change. How we get used to the change and then evolve with the next change before we know it. I guess it’s a good thing to not live in the past and adapt to the future otherwise we’d all still be chatting over AOL instant messenger and going inside of the gas station on rainy days to pay for our fuel. And I guess it also reminds us to absorb as much as we can from the present in case you never again get to stand in the spot you’re standing in right now. To be honest, I’m not really a “ponderer” nor do I have the time or the mental capacity to Deepak Chopra-ize about the meaning of life. So I’ll confess that all of this “thinking” was spawned by something delightfully bittersweet occurrence. I had a dream about my father last night. It always hits me hard the next morning when I see a vision of him because I haven’t seen him in so long. I missed his face and his genuine smile so I guess just seeing an imaginary vision of him was enough to be the catalyst behind all of this melodrama.
I dreamt that I was about to start something new in my life and he was apparently gone off on some journey somewhere and suddenly, while I was standing in some lush garden, he appeared out of nowhere and announced that he was back. He wore his usual stylish “matching yet contrasting” formal shirt and pants outfit and he was smiling. I could feel myself being filled with happiness. But it wasn’t the feeling of having someone come back from the beyond and being spooked out – it really just felt like he’d returned from a business trip somewhere. He stretched out his arms and I ran to go hug him and I felt something that I could have sworn weighed as much as the Himalayan mountains being lifted off of my shoulders. You know how in movies you see parody’s of people running through a field of daffodils or wildflowers and everything looks Bounty fresh and light and airy? That’s how I “felt myself feel.” Sounds weird I know, I just tell the tale, I don’t try to make sense of it. Moving on into the half-forgotten dream, apparently there was someone standing beside me that daddy looked up at after he hugged me, got a concerned look on his face about and asked “why is he…?” And then I woke up. The dream just ended. Cut off right there like some scratched Indian movie DVD. For the life of me, I’ve tried and tried all day and I can’t understand what the end of that question was. I wish more than anything today that I knew what he was so concerned over and why he stopped mid-sentence. “Why is he…?” Why is he what? Why is who? Who’s doing what? Am I blind to something and everyone else can see it? Have I done or am I about to do something that would hurt me? Should I have not eaten that goat cheese on my salad for lunch?
Is he sending me a sign? Why was he so concerned? What is going on here?? I’ve been thinking about the changes in my life and things I’m getting used to and the person I’m evolving to be but I can’t seem to find the ending to that darn sentence. Now if you know me and follow my blogs, you know that I’m a true pragmatist and I’m not one to believe that our dreams are messages from the beyond. I’m the kind of kid that believes our dreams are usually based on the last thing we saw, talked about, heard or thought before we went to bed and that’s it. No more, no less. I mean sure we all have dreams that freak us out or we wake up scared from or that show us a really fulfilling scene but if I started to believe that our dreams were really messages being sent to us – I’d probably be motivated enough to quit my job and go become an astronaut or be so deathly scared of Texas to never visit there again. But this one dream…this one I just can’t get out of my mind today. Maybe it’s the dichotomy of feeling relieved to have my helping hand, my guidance and my protector back so I don’t feel like I’m carrying the family’s burden’s alone and then being reeled back into a place of uncertainty or question that left me feeling unprotected and vulnerable to the unknown again. Maybe it was all just a fluke and I should just keep my pepper spray in a more handy location? I don’t know what’s going on guys…but I’ve got a real bad feelin’ about this….
