Wrestling With My Dreams

I took a little break from writing, in part because I was busy, and because I just had little to say. I took a short trip to North Carolina this weekend, one that was a lot of fun- it was my cousin's 21st birthday. It was my first trip back to the Tar Heel state since I left after the 2016 Election. I'll talk more about that later though.

Yesterday morning, I was awakened at 7:30 am by the sound of another cousin's children playing video games in the room I was in. I managed to handle that situation and get myself back to sleep. In the time just before being awakened, and just after falling back asleep, I had two of the more vivid dreams I've ever had, at least that I was able to remember.

• I had a dream that I was sitting around a table, by a pool, with a bunch of old friends. Each of them are people I still consider friends, but at some point I had an issue of some kind with them. We were discussing, of all things, my future. They were urging me to "join the club"- which in each of their cases meant having a wife and/or kids. It was definitely weird, and I was just laughing through most of the discussion. The dream ended with me jumping in the pool.
• The more freaky dream of the two begins with me coming down a hill, and being at the back of my childhood church. It seems bigger than the church really is, but it was most definitely my church, and I recognized it as such. I walked into the side yard, and found a door that somehow went into the altar area of the church (this door does not exist in real life, and the side yard wouldn't go into there, but whatever). I walked into that door, and the church was very dark inside, but not quite totally black where I couldn't tell it was a church inside. I walked down the aisle in the center, towards the back of the church, but turned back towards the door when I noticed a wind, and the dimming of the light. I looked towards the open door, and the sunny day that had existed when I walked in was suddenly darkening, quickly. A storm was coming, and the dim light I had that was guiding me through this building was disappearing. I was being left in the dark. The dream simply ended.

I don't have any way of really interpreting these dreams, but both have stuck with me for a day now. I interpret them both to have to do with aging, and my desire to both be authentic to the person I have been, and to grow into the person I'm becoming. Both deal with some deeper thoughts on the identity of the person I am at 34 years old, and whether or not i'm comfortable with it. At least I think. I don't know though.