Sep 21, 2023 3 min read

I had one of those dreams last week where I was around 16 and back in my hometown. In this one, I borrowed my mom’s VW Beetle and headed to the building that served as our high school. Once inside, I found a few dozen classmates milling around uncertainly. Like me, they apparently didn’t know why they were there. Sigmund Freud argued that our dreams are nothing more than wishes that we want to fulfill in our waking lives. Yet I have no wish to return to high school. But I am now a senior citizen, and the building long ago was repurposed as senior citizen housing. Maybe my subconscious mind knows something.

After I woke I realized that it was a variation on a recurring theme: I have to return to school because I never graduated. I’m forced into sixth grade as an adult and have to repeat every grade through 12. Neither teachers nor students seem perplexed that an adult is squeezed into a desk meant for children. In another variation, I’m in high school but have lost my class schedule and don’t know where I’m supposed to go next.

I’m told that these types of dreams are quite common and can be interpreted to mean that you’re suffering from anxiety because you’re still uncertain about what to do with your life. Or that you’re merely being nostalgic. Between these two choices, I have to think the latter is more likely.

I had a relatively carefree childhood. Most of those I attended school with would probably say the same. I’m in touch with many of them on Facebook, and they appear, like me, to have survived the threat of nuclear holocaust facing us in the ’50s. Besides, being vaporized by a nuclear explosion seems, in retrospect, downright merciful compared to having to endure another presidential election season.

We could walk from one end of our little town to the other in less than 10 minutes. Our troubles were few and minor. My neighborhood bully appeared only during the summers when his parents dumped him on his aunt and uncle, our next-door neighbors. “Whitey” never beat up any of us, but he always looked like he might. I think he leveraged his innate ability to intimidate into a career in law enforcement.

People seemed more civil back then. My dad never took anyone to court over a parking disagreement, never pounded on someone’s front door while packing a Glock because they were making too much noise at their backyard barbecue. None of my teachers was suspended or fired for reading from a banned book. But I really have no desire to relive my childhood. I’ve been back to my hometown and find it depressing. Most of the architecturally interesting buildings I loved growing up have been torn down and replaced with boring, unimaginative eyesores. A few of the big, old houses I loved remain. But I’m happy in the adopted suburb I now call home. No real nostalgia here.

So maybe I revisit my high school in my dreams because I still wonder what to do with my life. I had planned to be an English teacher, but never got there. I’ve held many jobs. Most of which I hated or merely endured. As Frank Sinatra sang, “I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.”

Well, maybe not a king. But there’s always tonight’s dream.