I’m suffering through this recurring dream. It varies slightly from night to night, but basically it involves me, at my current age of 30, in elementary school (or high school or sometimes back in university). I know a lot of people suffer the occasional anxiety based school dream, you know the one where you have a big exam you forgot to study for or a paper deadline looming or maybe a dream of feeling self conscious and nerdy the way you did in school.
These dreams are different though. Yeah, I often wake up and need a moment to recall myself to the reality of my life and calm my anxiety, but more often I’m exhilarated by the idea of being back there. I think the deal is that I now regret being so self-conscious and stressed out all the way through school and I wish I could go back and just enjoy it for what it was…or what it should have been.

Good lord, I wasted so many of my early years worrying, stressing trying to be someone else and then when I figured out that I couldn’t be anyone but me, I decided to be self destructive. Those were the university years, what a waste! Now I’m up to my ears in debt and I feel like I learned nothing. I rushed through school because that’s what I was supposed to be doing, went to the wrong University, studied the wrong things and I’m only now getting a clear idea of what I should have been doing. So now I dream, almost every night I dream of what it would be like to be in a classroom and be clear headed, be focused on learning and loving it. It took me until now to figure out and even at 30 I think I’m just beginning. Am I alone here? Anyone else feel like they screwed it up, rushed into career, adulthood, ended up in a tailspin and had to start all over? Will the dreams have a happy ending…eventually?