Saturday, July 3, 2010

I had a dream last night...

In order to really appreciate the title of this post you should be familiar with Josh Ritter's Change of Time (which you can listen to here), because that is what plays in my head every time I begin a story with the phrase that titles this post.

...and in that dream I had acquired some sort of strange terminal virus. I wasn't in pain. I wasn't incapacitated. I didn't look or feel poorly. The only change was that I was dying. In a matter of days or hours I would no longer live.

What struck me most in the dream and in the early waking hours thereafter was the way I interacted with my family and friends (as well as the way that multiple periods of my life - childhood, high school, college, and post-college - were all blended together into one present). I wasn't worried about finding a job, earning a second degree or attaining social significance. I stopped going for runs and getting sleep. The only thing I wanted to do was be with the people I cared about. The problem was, they didn't have the time to just "be" with me.

At one point in the dream my family was on vacation. My brother and sister were wrestling on the floor and then went off to go skiing or something. My parents went with them. They left me in the hotel room. I don't know what this means, but I've often felt like the odd person out in a family of five.

I ran into a friend I'd been quite close with in college. We haven't actually spoken for months, aside from brief exchanges on the internet and his empty promises to call "sometime." I explained to him that if we were going to talk it needed to be now, because I didn't know how long I had left. He showed genuine care and concern and even prayed for me (which I wouldn't anticipate in a dream or in real life). But he was busy, and soon  - before we had a chance to "really" talk - he was gone.

A rather poignant encounter with a different friend affected me even after I woke up. We were sitting together talking when a guy in an orange shirt that I've never met before, but apparently knew in the dream, came up to me. I spoke with him for a while, explained my situation, exchanged goodbyes and he went away, leaving the two of us alone. My friend - who sometimes seems to know me better than I know myself - turned to me and said with some astonishment, "Who is this woman?," a statement that expressed his simultaneous disbelief and approval of what I had become. Still dreaming, I self-reflected (I am truly one of the most introspective people I know). Since learning of my illness I'd actually become more relaxed. I was calm. I was confident. I didn't care about pleasing other people or living up to expectations. Hours or days from death I was finally content with my life. Tragic, isn't it? I looked my friend in the eyes, put my hand on his shoulder and leaned forward.

It was around this point in the dream that I started drifting out of REM, the whole time fighting to dip back down so I could finish my conversation, but I didn't have the opportunity. I stayed in bed, shut my eyes and attempted to return to my dream, but to no avail.

This morning as I was eating breakfast I wondered how I would change if I really did have such a virus, if I knew I was going to die soon. What would I do? What kind of person would I become? What would I stop caring about and stressing out over? Which relationships would really matter? I don't know. I can't really answer that question. Despite what Kris Allen says it isn't really possible to "live like you're dying" when you're not. It isn't really practical either. (If I was really dying I'd stop making payments on my student loans, going into work in the mornings, looking for employment, and saving money. Assuming I am going to live for the next several years, this might prove rather detrimental). It is, however, something to think about.

1 comment:

  1. I've often thought the same things when I hear the cliché "live like you're dying." If I were dying (and not in the morbid, inexorable everyone-is-dying-because-everyone-is-one-second-closer-to-death kind of way), I'd grab up whatever money I had and do whatever I darn well pleased.

    Your dream though, is interesting. It's amazing what dreams can do to us, especially when we know so little about why we really have them. They can change our whole day. Sometimes they even leave marks on our lives. Still, most of the time I dream about things like finding rotting human heads in my purse and watching tiny witch monkeys fly out of nostrils.

    Speaking of, I'm pretty excited for the movie Inception.

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