Rant #2,389: Welcome to My Nightmare

Today is June 5.

It is just another day for me, another work day, another day of toil and servitude.

That is OK; the alternative is so much worse.

Twenty-six years ago today, I was getting ready for my wedding to the girl of my dreams.

Today, it is just another day.

Last night, I had something of a nightmare, but it wasn't one where you got up rocking and reeling and with the shakes.

During this nightmare, which I have no idea how long it actually lasted, I sort of got a new job.

Sort of, because it wasn't confirmed 100 percent yet.

However, I jumped the gun, and told a couple of my co-workers that I got a new job.

Interestingly, not a single co-worker that I told actually exists in real life. I was telling people where I worked that I had a new job, but the faces were not familiar.

And we got to the office by elevator. In real life, we have no elevator where I work, and our working quarters are on one single level.

I was sitting in my car during lunch I presume, and my mother came out of nowhere. I asked her if anyone called to tell me that the job was mine. She said to me that that had not happened yet.

There was a co-worker sitting in the back of my car, and he heard everything, and somehow, it made it up to one of the executives of the company--again, someone I do not know in real life--and if I remember correctly, the person wished me well, but I actually did not have the job, as it had not been confirmed.

And then I woke up, and it was time to get up anyway, and I proceeded to get ready for work.

A very strange dream indeed. There was also a segment in it that I am not going to go into because it is embarrassing, isn't me in real life, and I guess one can dream, but one can't do what I did. It was somewhere in the middle of the dream, and really had nothing to do with what the dream was about, so I will leave it at that.

I find that as I get older, I am dreaming more, or at least having literate dreams, some of which I actually remember. I went for decades as a person who obviously dreamed while asleep--we supposedly all do--but who never remembered a single dream that I had.

Now, as I am getting older, my sleep pattern is not only changing--I go to bed a bit earlier on most days than I ever have in my life, and I wake up more, like two or three times a night--but I am remembering my dreams.

Most of them are nonsensical, or I remember bits and pieces of them.

I also recently read that in a study that was done some time ago, it was found that 17 percent of us have nightmares about work. I guess that includes me.

Last night's dream, or nightmare, or whatever you want to call it, was one that actually stuck to me, including the part that I am not telling you about because I am embarrassed by it.

It sent chills up my spine, in particular because my work situation still appears to be unresolved.

The latest is that we appear to be good through the summer, but beyond that ... I simply don't know, but I have heard from others that it does not look good, and I have heard plenty of murmuring about this possible inevitability.

Maybe that spurred the dream, I really don't know, but in the real world, it is frustrating to be living like this for the past couple of years, not knowing if today will be your last day at your place of work.

It is not like that now--I know we are going to last through the summer--but beyond that, the unknown awaits, and the dream somehow fit into all of this, but how, well, I am not too sure about that.

As it is, it is time to move on from the dream and just be happy that in the real world, I am working, but for how long I do not know.

It would be nice to have a pleasant dream once in a while; maybe I have had them, and they are just so pleasant that I cannot remember them.

We tend to remember the bad things over the good, or at least there is more to talk about when you are talking bad versus good, so maybe that is why I remember the bad dreams and not the good ones.

I guess it is time to move on.

And as John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful warbled more than 50 years ago, "What a day for a daydream ... ."

And I hope it is a nice one, one that I can really cherish.