weather radar: Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.

The summer before my junior year of high school I was rudely and abruptly relocated from Pennsylvania to Connecticut. I was forced to leave behind my friends, most of whom I had known since early childhood.

I was taken away from the only home I had ever really known . . . a Swiss chalet in the middle of the beautiful countryside of dairy farms and corn fields surrounded by the mountains of the Alleghenies.

I was moved to high-rise apartment building in a coastal town near New Haven, Connecticut . . . thrust from rural solitude to urbanity. The sweet smell of mountain air was replaced by salty sea air. The caw of crows to the screech of seagulls.

I went to a new school. Culture shock? Yeah. Kind of. I would have graduated with a class of about 30 students . . . that’s NOT a typo. . . THIRTY students to a class of hundreds. An unquestionable contrast, to be sure.

I can honestly say that I did not make or attempt to make a single friend at my new school during my Junior and Senior years. I didn’t overly see the point. I couldn’t relate to them and they couldn’t relate to me. I went to school, did my time and went home. I can barely even recall my graduation day . . . I felt like an anonymous being in a sea of strange faces. I was glad to have graduated but it wasn’t a special moment for me. I can’t say I’m bitter, exactly, but I wonder how my life might have been different.

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I've had a similar themed dream that’s recurred for years and years. In all of them I’m older than my high school years but I’m still in school because I haven’t graduated yet. In my dream I know that I’m an adult and have a job, a family of my own. Sometimes that works into it as a reason why I haven’t graduated . . . because I can’t work AND go to school at the same time and I have to work because I have a household to support.

I often can’t find my locker and if I do I can’t remember the combination to get into it. I often seek the help of the school office and I’m unable to get help. Once or twice I managed to get into the locker but nothing I needed for school was in it. Other times I can’t locate what classroom I’m supposed to be in or can’t remember my class schedule and I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. But I never finish with school.

It recently occurred to me the reason I have this dream. It’s because I never did graduate with THEM . . . the kids I grew up with. The kids I should have graduated with; the ones who would have made the experience meaningful and memorable.

Unfortunately, this conflict will never be resolved. It’s impossible. Though, I wonder with my realization, if the dreams will persist.

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This post isn’t a random thought that popped into my head . . . much like a lot of them are. This one was inspired by, ironically, a dream I recently had. This dream, also, ironically, had to do with a class reunion at the school with the people I never graduated with.

Like I said, I was at this class reunion. Except that for some reason it was a reunion for multiple graduating classes . . . including my sister’s class that was two years ahead of mine. In the dream my sister was being a total bee-otch which reminded me of why I hated her so much when we were kids.

Anyhoo, the dream itself isn’t important. What is notable is the way it ended.

At the end I was yelling . . . nay screaming . . . at my sister. I woke myself up yelling out loud, “. . . you ugly f*cking b*tch!”

Hehe . . . I remember laughing then thinking to myself, “boy, I hope I remember this in the morning” (obviously I did!) and the promptly falling back to sleep.

It’s scary the crap flying around inside my head. The recipe that follows has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than that it's an oddball combination that's really quite good!

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Grape Jelly Meatballs