I had a bad dream last night. My first back-to-school (or maybe just to-school) dream. Hopefully my last. It went something like this:

I’m in a college lecture. The lecture is over and I’m chatting with a few people while digging through my backpack, looking for my schedule. I can’t find the schedule. Lots of crumpled up papers, but no schedule. I know I have another class to get to, but I can’t find my schedule so I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. Eve is with me, just hanging out in the periphery playing with another little girl.

I’m in a college lounge, still digging through my backpack looking for my schedule. I’m pulling out cracker crumbs and rocks and small plastic dinosaurs from my huge, black backpack, but no schedule. I see a big TV in the room and remember that I can get my schedule online. I pull my iPad out of my backpack, but it’s a big, bulky, all black device that doesn’t work. I try for awhile to get the iPad to work, but I get nothing. I call to Eve that we have to go. She wanders back over to me, holding hands with a different little girl.

I’m in the kitchen of my house, loading the dishwasher. I think maybe I don’t have a class now, maybe it was the final period of the day and I didn’t have a class that period. I know that’s wrong though and I really have to find the schedule. My kitchen is a mess and I’m trying to get it cleaned up while I remember where I have to go. I call to Eve that we need to go now and I find her (I’m outside suddenly, but smoothly) and a different little girl playing in the dirt. She is all dirty. Great. There’s one more thing I have to do now.

Back in the kitchen, I’m in a hurry so everything is going wrong. Liquids spill on the floor, the dishwasher soap powder spills. I’m flustered. I call to Eve that we really need to go now, though I have no idea where to, and (suddenly back outside again) she wanders around the corner of the house, holding hands with another little girl. I see Eve has a little white and orange worm sticking out of her nose, wiggling around. She seems oblivious to it. My body starts to convulse.

I wake up. Thankfully! It doesn’t take a genius to analyze this dream, just two days before starting at UVEI, starting down a new path that will have me more tied down and committed than I have been for the past six years! Though the dream stuck with me all day, I’m happy that the “feeling” of the dream did not. I didn’t spend the day feeling stressed or anxious, but the dream was quite clearly still there.

I did, however, get the orientation schedule today and they posted a whole bunch of documents and assignments to our Google drive. I read through them this evening, though I’m sure we’ll review them all together at orientation next week. Suddenly it’s feeling very real and very much like a lot of work!