I've been plagued with bad dreams lately. It's really starting to grate on me, so I thought to write it out here and see if I can make more sense of it outside of my head...
The dreams are all variations on a common theme: I want to do something or get somewhere, but things keep happening to slow me down or run me off course.
I wanted to get back to my car just off campus last night, but my legs were like lead and my vision was blurry. In my dream, I understood this as a condition that came and went. It was a little frustrating, but not infuriating...just keep going. I wanted to cut through a building, but to get to the back door I had to wait in line and return a mask I had borrowed. When I grabbed the mask to return it, I realized there was another mask that I would have to return in another building as well. Both masks were a little dirty, but I didn't want to take the time to wash them and come back again. I finally got through the line after tripping over someone's baby stroller and had to exit out a different door from the one I wanted. I checked my map to see how close I was to my car...so much further...I had been going the wrong way...but if I just turned here, it wouldn't be too much further...I entered another building. People were working behind their desks...receptionists and such...there was a puzzle tower you had to figure out in order to get out the back door. I skimmed the instructions/riddles quickly to see if there was a trick...the receptionists' whispered conversations made me think there was a simple trick to it. I could tell it was broken, though, and not going to help me, so I went back out the front door. The receptionists were amazed that I had figured out the trick so quickly, but I hadn't. I couldn't have. There was no possible way for me to solve that puzzle. I had just gone out the only way I could. Then there were planned explosions near my parking garage (tearing down an old football stadium) that I had forgotten were scheduled for that day. The construction increased traffic and blocked the road with pieces of building...I thought, "Aw, man, this is terrible! Okay, let's find another way."
The meaning of these dreams should be abundantly clear, right? I subconsciously feel obstructed and distracted from the things I want to do. But in this case, oddly, it's not a crisis. It's not life or death. It's just a litany of small, unexpected, spontaneous events that keep me from doing something very ordinary, very common, very not-urgent. It's frustrating to be obstructed, but the thing I'm working toward isn't really that important anyway, so it doesn't really matter. None of it matters. I'm just doing stuff because it's there.
And maybe that's it. Maybe that's the part that's bugging me most of all...sure, I'm constantly interrupted and distracted from my goals (I write about that pretty often on the blog), but maybe it's more bothersome to me feeling like my goals just aren't that important or meaningful anymore. Am I bored of them? Have I given up on achieving them? Are there things I'd rather be doing instead?
*sigh*
I'll spend some time re-examining my goals this week. Maybe I need a change, or maybe I just need a refresher course on what I want to do with my life ;)
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