The Dream of Denial

Sitting on the bench awaiting my chance. My chance will come. It has to come. I was once the best. Don't they realize that? They have to.
I get it. There are others who are better now. I accept that. I will wait for my chance. It will come. They will take their turns, and then they will turn to me. Why aren't they turning to me?
The starter is now out of the game. Sure, they went to the number 2 guy. I get it. I am not the number 2 guy either. I know, I have fallen. A lot. I am way down the pecking order now. But still, I have to be at least the 3rd or 4th option. Surely they see that. You don't just lose it all. I was the best. I still have it. Just put me out there, and they will see. I just have to bide my time. Wait for my chance. Wait for another chance.
I will be the best again. Once I am out there, they will see. I was unhittable. I will be that again. They say I can't pitch anymore. My arm is dead. I have no juice left in it. They are wrong. Wait until I am out there. They will see. I will blow them away.
The second guy is now done. Here comes my chance. What? Another guy? I am better than that guy. Okay, now I am getting the message. They are not going to put me out there. What the fuck is going on here? I think, at the very least, I have earned my chance at one more shot. But, obviously they don't see it that way. The game is out of reach now. Four more guys have come and gone and here I sit at the end of the bench. The coach is not going to put me in. I can see that now.
One day, I will be with a new team, and I will get my chance. And I will show them. I still got it. That is what I said, on the last 3 teams that I failed on.
I guess I am only kidding myself. And I will keep doing that. One day, I will get it back. I have to. I just have to.
This dream, the one I have once a month, this dream of denial, never dies.

Aint no stopping me now

I was hanging around the school, just waiting to play hoops in the schoolyard. I was an adult now, but I still loved to just shootaround or play pickup. Even if the kids were much younger than me, I didn't care. I still liked a good game of ball from time to time. In some ways, I have never grown up.  And...I don't want to. I am very mature and responsible, but I like to still be kid-like.
I noticed a bus outside the front of the school with kids gathering in front of it. Some began to board the bus, but it had been 30 minutes now and they had not left. I wondered what was going on.
A teacher was standing just around the corner, having a smoke, so I asked him what was going on. He told me they were waiting for the bus driver but he had not showed up yet. I said that was too bad and went back to shooting hoops.
About 10 minutes later I heard that the bus driver was not coming, at all. They would have to cancel the trip.
I said I wanted to help. I am always wanting to help. Even when I probably shouldn't, or don't know what is being asked of me, or if I am actually capable of helping, I want to try and help.
The regular driver backed out at the last minute, so they asked me if I could help. I had driven large vehicles before, so why not a bus? I said yes, I would do it.
For whatever reason, even though I was needed and supposed to drive the bus there, I did not. I was just a passenger. I don't know why it worked that way, or remember who drove the bus to that park, but someone else did. Phew! Half the battle was done. I had gotten myself in too deep, but at least I had a shot of pulling this off.
The kids ran off and played while I ate my lunch. My Uncle Stanley was there, and he asked me if I was still okay to drive the bus back to the school. He was now giving me an out. I could get out of this, and not have to face up to the fact that I was not qualified to drive that bus. But, I told him that I was okay to drive it. I was going to do this,  even though I shouldn't be doing this.
As the kids loaded back onto the bus, I surveyed the controls from the driver seat. How hard could this be? Yes, I had never driven a standard transmission before, but I had driven a forklift in the warehouse many times,  and that was standard, so I should be able to pull this off. Of course, driving a forklift in the factory meant no other vehicles, or pedestrians or even having to stop fast. I was only fooling myself this time.  I had no shot at pulling this off. We had to take the highway back to the school, and at top highway speed, I was in way over my head to stop properly if something happened. Hell, whatever! I had the emergency brake and if I stripped the gears, so what? I would just manage and bullshit my way through things, like I always did. That was always my way. Why stop now?
All the kids were on board, and Uncle Stanley was in the first seat,  first row, to my right.

"Lets go", and as he said that, I put it in gear, and we were on our way.

At least I could pull this part off. I knew how to engage a clutch and move from neutral to first gear. So far, I still looked like I knew what I was doing. We moved towards the road. Now, the first test, could I merge into traffic,  safely, and appear to make it look like I knew what I was doing? What if someone cuts right in front of me? Will I be able to stop? Am I foolishly risking young, innocent lives by doing this, just to be my stubborn self and prove that I can pull this off? Why am I doing this? What is wrong with me that I can't admit that I cannot do something?
Again, whatever! I said to myself. Worst thing that happens is I pull the emergency brake,  or slam on the brakes, and ruin the transmission. No one will get hurt. I can make up a bullshit excuse to smooth it over. I always could and I always have.
It's just a dream anyway. So, I will wake up before anything bad really happens anyway. And it is just a dream, nothing is real in a dream, just the doubts that you have when you are awake. That you can't deny or shut down,  or dismiss when you are dreaming.
 As always, before I had to deal with the consequences of my doubts about why it is I do what I do when I should not do what I do,  I woke up. I am sure I will have this exact dream again, or something just like it, and the cycle will continue. That is, until I deal with it when I am awake.  So far, that has never happened.
I am very confident and cocky when I am awake, but when I sleep and dream, I have all the doubts that everyone else has. Don't know what that means, but it is fact.
You can run really fast from the truth when you are awake, but the truth catches up easily when you are dreaming.

Haunting Dream

I used to be a dispatcher. I loved it. The action. The never know what is going to happen next. The making it work when it seems you can't. When almost no one can figure out how to get it done and then you do. It was always an adrenaline rush.
But there was always a downside. It was hard to turn the motor off. You are always thinking. Always going. That is the nature of a dispatcher.
I sometimes have dreams about old dispatch situations.
My wife and I are planning a trip to the Caribbean for December. Because of all the variables I am using my dispatch skills to try and put together the trip in the best possible way. Last night I was working on that. This dream probably came from that.
I rolled into the office.  Two calls. There were no drivers so I decided to just do them myself. I was a great dispatcher but I was also a great driver.  I was always the fastest and the smartest driver. Jonathan handed me the two calls.  Fairly easy.  I was driving my old Pontiac Acadian.  Loved that car. My first real car of my own. Bought it with my summer job money one summer just after I finished high school. That car lasted for years.
 We were in the foreign exchange business. Cheques and cash. But for whatever reason, I had to put large wooden and metal contraptions in my small Acadian to deliver. Got them in, no trouble. It was a dream. In dreams, objects that should never fit in a space magically fit in a space.
 As I was ready to leave, three more calls. No problem. There was always more calls and changes. You learned to go with the flow and make it work in this game. He told me where the calls all were and when each one needed it.  As always,  it never worked out that way. On my way to the first call I couldn't remember the address or where it was.Same old Same old. Found it anyway. In dreams,  you find places that you have no idea how to get to. In real life, I have been able to do that as well.
I found my way there, but was not able to find my out. I was stuck there. Stranded. I always seem to be stranded in my dreams. In life, I am always stranded as well. Luckily, in the dreams I wake up and can just start over.
In real life, I remain stranded.

Afraid To Sleep

Life is very fragile. You can be taken away at any time. We all go to bed seemingly healthy and happy. It is always possible that we won't wake up. Die in our sleep.
I had a crazy dream last night. I was taken hostage by a former friend from high school.  When I say former, I mean not in touch with anymore. There was no bad blood. We just faded off, like so many high school friendships end up doing.
But I always had a feeling that he would be the type who could go off and be crazy. The kind that everyone would say after the fact was the normal one that they never saw it coming from. He just seemed too prim and proper and nice. Being his friend, I saw the other side of him sometimes. The angst. The frustration. It always stuck in the back of my mind.
In the dream, he had taken a few of us from our high school "circle of friends' hostage and forced us to play golf on holes that were out of sequence (I have the golf holes out of sequence dream a lot) at gun point. He was mad about something.  Not really sure what.  Maybe because we all remained friends to this day and he was not part of that. I don't know for sure what he was mad about.  I didn't dream that part. I just know he was mad, at least my projection of him in my dream was mad. Of course that means a part of me is actually mad, but that is too Freudian to get in to here.
As the dream progressed we all managed to escape.  I now had my dog, who was old and not that mobile, with me. She couldn't walk. But she was so sweet and loving that I carried her everywhere. I had actually done this in real life when she got very old.  It is a very vivid memory and a dream I have often. Not really sure why it was part of this dream.  Again, much too Freudian for me. She just was. That is all I need to know at this point. All I get to know at this point.
I hushed her quiet as we hid in a room. There were others there and they were attempting to hide me, so he couldn't find me. It was apparent that he had. I managed to get away.  I seemed to be able to go through the wall to get out. You have strange powers in a dream. You are able to go through walls but not able to get away from mere mortals. Such is the reality of dreams.
We were now on the street. Every direction we headed ended up at a fence that restricted further movement. Funny, I could go through the wall of the room, but not the fence. Again, not going there in this story.
Because the dog needed to be carried we were moving slow and he would always catch up. After about 4 dead ends he was now on top of us. He still had the gun and was about to shoot. He wasn't trying to kill me, but wanted to kill my dog. Just as he pointed the gun at me, he was actually about to kill  my dog. My precious dog. As the bullet left the chamber and headed towards us, in that instant, I woke up.
I couldn't run in the dream, and now as I awoke I had a horrible cramp in my calf. I tried to ride it out, but it was intense and wouldn't go away. Finally I rose to my feet, very abruptly and managed to move my leg in a position to release the cramp.
I had gotten up very suddenly. My wife, normally a very poor sleeper, did not move or react at all. That was highly unusual for her. She could hear a pin drop in the basement at 3am after she had been in deep sleep for hours.
I got back in bed and looked at her. She was out cold. Not moving either. Again, highly unusual for her. I touched her and no response. I touched her again. No response again. I didn't see her breathing either. I thought she might have died in her sleep. I touched her harder one last time and she awoke.
Falling asleep comes with risks. It might be the last thing you do and you have no idea that it will be.
It's like a friend with a gun chasing you on a golf course with holes out of order.  You never see that coming.
You can't protect your dog from death, even though it is inevitable and you try anyway.  You can't protect your wife or yourself from death when you go to sleep. If the crazy guy with the gun wants to take you, he will. If you wake up alive, he didn't want you bad enough yet.

Scary Dream

The bell rang. It was time. Time for the first class. I barely remembered where to go. I had reassured my mother that I would do okay.  I knew my stuff. But the reality was that I knew nothing. I couldn't bullshit my way through this one.
Now it's forty minutes later. The class is over. Math class. First test. The page is blank. I hand it in. The teacher, a very overweight man in his mid 50's, knows I didn't write any answers down. He offers to help. But he knows, and I know, there is no help for me. I am doomed to fail.
On to the second class. Science class. I have always sucked at science. I barely came to class anyway. I never even opened the book to study. I wanted to make sure I was a complete failure. I had achieved that. This time I have to endure the whole 40 minutes. One agonizing second at a time. Finally, it's over. Another blank sheet. No answers coming out of this body. I hand it in. The teacher doesn't even notice..or care.
Now it gets worse. Time for the third class. I have been skipping school so much that I have never even bothered to go to any classes after the first two. I don't even know where I am supposed to be to go fail. I am lost. Totally lost. I am in the right place , but I have no idea where that place is.
Suddenly, I am walking the halls, passing lockers. Endless lockers. They seem to lead nowhere. It's like I am on a merry go round that never ends and I can't get off. I approach a hardware store. A hardware store in the middle of a high school? Makes no sense. Nothing makes sense. I go in anyway. There are all sorts of cut wood pieces. Everywhere. Why? I don't know. But I am fascinated by them.
The attendant tries to serve me. Tries to help me. That's his job. There is no help for me. I am lost. I don't even know if I should be here. Why I am here. Wait, I know why I am here. I am hiding out. I have been so busy skipping school for the whole semester that I don't want to go back out into that hall. If I did that, I would have to admit to everyone that I don't even know where the next 4 classes are. I can't even go to the places I am supposed to go to fail properly.
Luckily, I wake up. It was just a dream. Reality is actually better than fantasy in this case. Now, do I really want to go back to sleep?