The Gift

I had a bad day.  I will spare the world the sequence of dramatic events that led to my bad day because they were not even realistic events, rather symbolic ones that only a woman would use to poetically sum up her life.  I can, a day later, easily look back on my alleged "bad day" and make sense of it with a touch of humor and a positive spin, and move on. 

I also had a bad night though.  That is something different altogether... 

I never liked the word "Nightmare" so I always told my kids that a long time ago, the Indians regarded dreams as something sent to them by the gods, and that in each dream there was a GIFT.  The whole family would climb into bed in the morning and share their gifts.  Some dreams were not so pleasant and they were called "Loud Dreams."  These dreams were sometimes considered to hold the most important gifts or lessons to be learned.

So.... last night, in my dream, I'm at school.  Never a good start.  I'm in another country or dimention or simply far from home, and am never seated in the right classroom.  Nobody will talk to me and I am regarded with disdain by all, except for this really ugly dog with large teeth and matted brown and white fur.  Dog follows me around everywhere, talks incessantly, and needs me to find him a home.  I skip school to fly down to my parents house to see if they will take Dog, but upon arrival, I saw they had written the words "No Dogs" in their yard with stones.  I don't have the heart to tell my ugly friend, who luckily can't read, that we have reached a dead end, so I turn around my flying carpet type thing, and Dog and I head to a keg party.  I hadn't had Shiner for a long time.  It was really tasty.  I sat in a lawnchair for a spell, closed my eyes and enjoyed the slight breeze. Then this yukky guy from my past started stalking me and he wouldn't leave me alone, and then I realized I had not even been at the right school and I would have to do the whole year over again, and then I couldn't find Dog, and then I woke up.

Like I said, bad night.  "Loud Dreams" filled with fears of isolation, inadequacy and incompetence take a while to shake off.  But if you look hard enough you can find the Gift sent from the gods.  Mine was simple as I realized my dream was the first time I'd had a beer in ages.

I got in my car, and did something EVERY woman needs to do from time to time.  I bought a six pack of Shiner, grabbed a lawn chair from the garage, and decided to stop overthinking and analyzing shit...

.... and lived happily ever after for a little while.

The end.