I dreamed I was given the opportunity to go back in time and observe myself at the start of my college days. At first, I was in sort of a spectator mode, just walking around and looking at things and saying "wooooow" to myself at the subtle differences between my memory of things and how they actually appeared to me (which, since this was a dream, was probably less accurate than my actual memory of things, incidentally). I think I was even able to float to some extent, but that's more or less irrelevant. At some point, I was just wandering by the Rot and saw myself and my group of friends waiting to get in, which caused me to get rather depressed for some reason, possibly because I missed both hanging out with my friends and the option of just getting free meals from the dining hall all the time. I also noted to myself how much more attractive but also socially awkward I was back then (again, this being a dream, I'm not sure how accurate my assessment of my former self was).
I then realized that I was outside, it was very early in the morning, it was cold and drizzly, and I was in my pjs, so I went to try to get into my old dorm, 22-3. At first I was frustrated when it occurred to me that I couldn't get in without a key, but then I remembered a series of connecting hallways that led from the main lobby of Demoss into the dorm hall (once again, this is not a real thing, so my dream memory is a bit shoddy). After making my way through Demoss and once I was just outside the hall itself, I ran into Andrew Clark. I got the strange feeling that he didn't quite belong there either, since he seemed to be headed to work, not to class, but he didn't notice me at first, and I figured it was because I was a sort of time travelling apparition anyway, so I smacked him on the back to get his attention. He looked at me very matter of factly and said "Bill. How are you feeling?" I replied "I feel..." and then sighed, and he said "Weary. I know." And that was exactly the word I had been unable to find. Nothing more was said, but we exchanged manly hugs and went on our respective ways.
Well THAT made me somewhat depressed, as the way he had spoken those last words seemed to say "yeah, me too, but you have to just keep plugging away." So I kept walking toward the interior of the hall, where, amusing anecdote, I saw Brian Demaso, told him that I just talked to Andrew Clark, and he said "Oh yeah? What sweeper did you use?" and I replied with "the 'I'm going to work' sweeper," and then made a sound effect. For the record, this is some radio nonsense (a sweeper is a little sound bit put in between songs that identifies the station, for instance) that means nothing, and it was one of those things that felt totally natural to talk about within the context of the dream, but when I woke up it sounded ridiculous. I'm only mentioning this now because when I go back and read this a little ways down the road, I'll chuckle at the absurdity of what I would have otherwise forgotten. Anyway, once inside the hall, there was something of human traffic jam, and I discovered that the cause of it was three or four girls standing in the middle jabbering away, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. A few guys were kind of sheepishly trying to get their attention to make them stop talking and move, but they were all pretty attractive girls and the guys seemed nervous about the prospect of talking to them. Realizing how silly this was, I, in my infinite wisdom since being removed from the mindset of a college freshman, walked up and bellowed "Ex-CUSE ME PLEASE, LADIES!" at the top of my lungs in a deep, Morpheus-addressing-Zion voice.
That got their attention, and they started to move, and I was a hero. A few of the girls were talking disgustedly among themselves about how incredibly rude I was, and I was offended, noting to myself that all I had done was ask them politely to move when they were keeping everyone from going anywhere. One girl, however, expressed that same sentiment to the others and defended my actions, and kept glancing back at me. I started following her down the hill toward whatever massive game of capture the flag (or whatever) it was we were all going to play, and I introduced myself. After a few brief exchanges, I thought "I've found her! My soul mate! Now... do I spend the 3 mana to give my crocodile lifelink?" (Again, another thing that makes no sense that I'll find funny later on)
At that point, I experienced a dramatic epiphany: I realized that I was not simply in spectator mode, but that I could take actions and make decisions that could alter the course of history, or at least my own personal history, and I realized that I had an opportunity to give myself one of the things I had always wanted throughout my college career, and that was a girlfriend. And then, horrified, I caught myself. All at once, it dawned on me that something as seemingly simple and harmless getting a girlfriend for my past self could in fact very radically alter the course of history, specifically dictating how often I hung out with my guy friends and even possibly affecting who I chose to hang out with in the first place. I woke up in a shock.
And that's where we are right now. It was quite a startling realization. See, I'm a big believer that things happen for a reason, and I didn't want to mess any of that up, especially if it would influence the relationships that developed with my friends in college. Granted, we've all gone our separate ways since then, but I believe, and I don't think I'm alone on this one, that if we all got together again, we'd be able to sit down in 305, for instance, and just carry on as normal, just like we always did back then (I actually have a draft I wrote about a similar concept after Dave's wedding... I'll have to get around to finishing and posting that sometime). My point is, I wouldn't trade my experiences with my friends back then for anything. Some people would respond with something along the lines of "well if you had never met those people, you would have made other friends, so it doesn't really make any difference." No, screw you, you only say that because you don't have very good friends.
Anyway, after thinking about it for a brief moment, that dream helped me realize that some of the "what if" issues are essentially irrelevant, whatever they were. It doesn't matter because it didn't happen that way. The only thing that matters now is what happens now and how you deal with it moving forward. I never had a girlfriend in college, and considering how appalled my dream self was at the notion of that prospect messing up history, I'd say that's not only okay, it's delightful. I suppose, to sum this up briefly, there's a time and a place for everything, whether things happen exactly the way you want them to or not.
Well would you look at that, there WAS a nugget of wisdom to be offered at the end of this post. Also, if nothing else, I find dreams to be fascinating windows into our subconsciousness, so I always like talking about them. Plus, after checking the clock upon waking up, I discovered that what felt like a full night's sleep was only about 3 hours. I was also really thirsty, hence the title. Also, forgive me if my writing was sub-par; I've been in sort of a daze the whole time trying to recall all this, and it's friggin early in the morning. I guess all that's left to do now is go eat a donut hole.
