So I had a dream last night, I'm not normally one for analyzing my nightly visions, got enough crazy goin' on up in here, but every once in a while one comes along and sticks in my mind vividly come morning, I feel like this kind of subconscious persistence deserves a conscious look. This dream definitely seemed to me to carry an insight within.
In the dream I was looking out the window of my house onto a field of grass surrounded by a border of trees. This field was empty and lonely. It had no visitors, no one in the neighbourhood ever stepped foot on it or found a purpose for it. One day someone came along and laid out a path of stepping stones cut of tree stumps around the perimeter of the field, inside the border of trees. Suddenly the field became a neighbourhood attraction, families came out to walk the path of stepping stones and the field was always busy with groups and couples and individuals strolling along. None of these folks strayed from the designated path and as I watched from my window I was intrigued to find that they all walked in the same direction around and around and around. I myself never went out to the field, I was content to watch from behind the safety of my window.
A few things strike me about this dream, firstly that I found myself watching from within my house, behind the border and protection of the glass. My therapist would be pleased to hear me note that the house is often symbolic of a person's inner life, and so in the dream I find myself watching life go by from within my own mind. Secondly the path itself is interesting. It felt to me like the field was overwhelming to the neighbourhood before it was given a prescribed purpose by the precision laying of the stepping stone path. Only then could people find a use for it and they strictly followed the path laid out for them. I see myself watching this, watching the people around me go by on their prescribed paths, lifepaths that have been laid out for them, while I have to make my own.
So I come back to "The Story of Me", my brother was here this past weekend and we recalled a conversation that I at first insisted must have happened when he was about 16 and I was about 20, upon further consideration though it is more likely that this exchange happened when he was at the tender age of 12, which makes it all the more telling. I remember clearly that we were upstairs in the family home, both of us getting ready to go out somewhere when the youngster turned to me and said, "You know you're probably never going to make any money so I think we should make a deal now that when the parents get old I'll take care of everything financially and you'll actually look after them." That's right, at the age of 12 my brother was preparing himself for the odd, round-a-bout life his big sister was bound to lead. My twenties are really a blur to me, I knew I wasn't happy with the prescribed path, I managed to finish high school a semester early and put university off for a year. But at that point I still wasn't brave enough to find my own way and so I enrolled in a local university and took courses I thought were interesting, but I gotta tell ya, I had no thought for future or career or anything with meaning. University itself was a twisty-turny road, I got sick and had to take yet another year off, I transferred out of province to finish up, I drank and drugged my way to graduation and somewhere along the way I met the love of my life who managed to stick with me through it all.
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