I have recurring dreams (nightmares?) about being back in high school. I can’t find my classes, I’m in the wrong classes and I’m always late. Last night I had another one. I have these dreams so often that in last night’s dream I made an off-hand comment that I always have dreams like this.

But this time it was different. Instead of growing more and more panicked when I couldn’t find my classes and realized I was signed up for the wrong classes, I went straight to the office and calmly asked them to straighten it out. I shrugged when I handed them my schedule, as if to say this always happens.

There was also a moment in one of those mixed grade classes–you know the ones, where the younger students are either smarter or more motivated and the older students are less eager to be there–when I stood up to my taunting classmates. I protected the young eager students and put the older, lazy students (of whom I was one–older, hopefully not lazy) in their place. I remember sitting down in the dream and feeling good. I didn’t care what the other students thought about me. I remember thinking that was easier than I thought it would be. And I remember it feeling right. So very right.

It’s odd because that’s not at all how my high school experience went, or how these dreams usually go, but I’ll take it.