For years and years, I have had a recurring dream. I guess you could call it a nightmare, because it’s emotionally upsetting, but it’s not filled with zombies or monsters or decapitation.

It’s about not finishing college.

I graduated from college a semester early. I tested out of nine credits, and took six in summer school, and – voila! – early graduation. This was especially exciting to me because Bobby and I were engaged and I really wanted to get married. But I wasn’t going to get married until I got my degree. So, graduating early allowed us to get married a few months earlier. It also saved my parents a bunch of money, and allowed me to take out less student loans. Yippeee!

And of course, opened the door for my subconscious to forever torture me with dreams about not finishing college.

In some of the dreams, I can’t find a particular class. It’s the day of the final and I realize I haven’t been to class all semester. I dash all over campus trying to find a textbook. I spend the dream searching, searching, running, never finding.

In some of them, I can’t find my school mail box at the campus post office, or CPO (read: see-po) as we called it. And of course, in said mailbox is critical info I need to graduate.

This dream I had last night was even weirder and more elaborate. It involved going to church at said college…and church was held in a swimming pool. And apparently it was taking me a real long time to graduate, because I already had Joshua, and somehow he was attending preschool at said college. And, I couldn’t find either one of our mailboxes at the CPO! Then, I got trapped in a class taught by Casey of Moosh in Indy (who was nowhere near my college, I am pretty sure she was still in high school then, the young whippersnapper) which involved her handing out a lot of Shabby Apple dresses to everyone but me, I got a mismatched top and skirt, and the class went over and I was late to pick Joshua up from his college-preschool and I had to leave Casey’s class early which prevented me from…you guessed it…graduating. (Dangit Casey! Cut a girl a BREAK!)

So.

(Quick congrats to Casey Mullins for making my my recurring nightmare!)

I didn’t sleep very well and woke up emotionally distressed. I hate it how dreams feel so real. My emotions were wrenched, my blood pressure high.

Maybe I should dig my diploma out of whatever box it’s buried in and sleep with it under my pillow?