The Dream

I have a recurring dream. I am always back at the Institution, where I worked for 24 years. I've already quit but I'm staying on without pay, usually to help Maria (my friend and successor to my job there). Whatever I'm doing, it's very purposeful. In the dream, in the midst of some mild confusion or minor disgruntlement, I come to a slow realization that I don't have to be there at all. Why am I hanging on? I can simply go. And I begin to gather up my things.

It's odd. Not the usual frustration and anger that needs to be worked out in dreams. It's has a liberated feeling. Like one of those flying dreams, where you stretch your arms and realize you can lift off.

A new thought: I'm a ghost. You know -- the spirit who hangs on, mingling among the living, still thinking she's alive, still clinging... and then finally lets go. Ooh, it gives me the chills to think of it that way.

I don't like being a ghost. It's the curse of the shy person, that feeling, even though the dream tells me it's liberating. Well, at least this spirit of mine has drifted on to paradise...

4.6.06

 

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