Dreams About Dreams

"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams."

- Elias Canetti

I had a dream last night that I was scheduled to have a post-wedding bridal shower, which makes absolutely no sense to me. At the shower, I was supposed to sing a short tune. I was somewhat embarrassed to be singing it but felt excited about performing in front of friends and family. In hindsight, there were men arriving at the party, so I'm still not entirely clear why I thought it was a bridal shower.

The point of my yammering on about my dream is that it wound up that, by the time I arrived, new people had taken over the room where my shower was supposed to be. Everyone was leaving, and I had lost my chance to sing for them. I was desperately pleading with the person running the venue to please bring all the chairs and my guests back, which was also interesting considering that I realized the room I was speaking about was the living room of my parents' house.

Another interesting tidbit (only interesting to me, I realize) is that there was a male acquaintance there who shares a name with a coworker who was very rude to me yesterday right before I left work. The male acquaintance is someone who has seemed to distance himself more and more from his good friends over the years for a reason unbeknownst to me. I'm not exactly sure if there's any connection between them aside from their names, but I can't think of why else he would be the only person who I remember being in attendance at this incredibly late, co-ed bridal shower where I was the entertainment.

None of it makes any sense at the moment, so I suppose I thought writing it out would help. The only thing that stands out to me is the fact that I had my hopes built up and then nothing I planned on worked out. I've gotten used to that in life, as I think we all do eventually. Anything I get incredibly excited about, I usually partially assume it won't actually happen in the end. It makes me feel robbed. But I guess that's just life.

Am I really as negative as I sound when I write? I sure hope not. I've always prided myself on being an eternal optimist, but maybe the "eternal" part isn't quite as accurate as I'd always assumed. Maybe I'm just getting older and adding a little dose of reality to my optimism stew. Either way, I'm not a big fan.

A couple weeks ago, I read a hilarious blog post from Ali at Hairspraying about not giving a damn about hearing about other people's dreams. It had me laughing so hard that I read to at least three other people. And yet, here I am, blabbering about my dream and what it might have meant. I suppose the difference is that you could've stopped reading at any point in time, and I would never know it. But, when people share their dreams in person, you have to politely feign interest even if you genuinely don't give a rat's patootie what elaborate tale their mind conjured up the night before.

I'm a weirdo though, and I like to listen to friends' dreams because I think it's fun to help them figure things out. That's just because I like to help people solve their problems and sort out their thoughts and feelings. Again, why am I not applying to grad school to become a counselor?

Then again, what in the world makes me think I should advise others when I'm sitting around moping about having no direction? Perhaps the irony, which is probably only irony to me because maybe it's obvious to people who read my posts objectively, is that the one thing that would make me feel centered and purposeful would be to become a counselor. I'll chew on that for a while.

Sorry my last few posts have probably not done much of anything to enrich or inspire anyone else's lives. I'll chew on that for a while, too.