If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do? I don't mean typical bucket list shenanigans like sky diving, Rocky Mountain climbing, and all that jazz that country music folk sing about, but rather, what unfinished business, if any, would you attend to? Is there someone you need to apologize to? Forgive? Tell someone something that you've been holding onto but could never quite bring yourself to say out loud?
Last night I had a dream that, for whatever the reason may have been, my dad was privy to the knowledge that my entire, immediate family was going to be with Jesus (not necessarily in a "we're all going to die a sudden death" sense, but more like "The Last Battle"/Narnia/Elijah sense where we were just going to leave this world behind & go to Heaven with God). This was accompanied by the stipulation that we all had one day to get our things in order before we had to leave.
Now, were I an allegorical Everyman of Medieval proportions, I may have tried to gather up my good deeds & what not and prepare my case for St Peter & his Book O' Life at the Pearly Gates, however, being the sensible little Lutheran that I am, I think even my dream self understood that faith in Christ & his grace are all I'll need. And besides, obviously I already knew I was going to be with Jesus, so the fear of the actual departure from this world to Heaven wasn't really a pressing issue.
But I digress...
I then found myself in a huge house that was seemingly overrun by nearly everyone with whom I've ever done theatre. As everyone frantically scrambled around with costumes & set pieces in hand, I stood in the midst of the chaos, overcome, not so much by the fear of death or leaving this world behind, but by the fact that I had about a dozen of those damn, proverbial albatrosses hanging around my neck like some God-forsaken sea mariner straight out of a sophomore Lit. class; each albatross had a name & a confession that my stoic & rejection-phobic nature had been diligently hiding away over the years.
(Just to clear things up, there were no actual dream fowls of symbolism hanging about my neck...just the staggering weight of untold confessions...and only about 3 or 4, though it felt like a dozen)
As I watched the familiar faces of my fellow actors pass me by, the stress and fear of actually finding the few with whom I knew I needed to speak was overwhelming. As much as I knew I needed to get those feelings off my chest, the prospect of facing these people to do it was terrifying.
The first person I needed to find came quickly, and, as it turned out, the thing I needed to say to this person was not painful at all. I found him sitting on the ground, but as soon as I finally made my way over to him, I felt myself being pulled away to find the next, harder confessee (? Person to whom I needed to confess) so I quickly shouted, "I've always cared about you!" He looked up, slightly confused, yet somehow content, as I was pulled away. Honestly, I'm not sure why my dream self wanted to say that to this particular person, but oh well, such is dream life.
The next person was the hardest I would have to face. Whatever was moving me pulled me outside of the house and into the front yard where I saw him, or rather the person playing him, standing. For, you see, the person I saw before me looked nothing like the young man I was looking for, but somehow I knew it was him. I couldn't tell you who exactly he did look like because he seemed to be made up of features from several young men I've known, most of whom have had little to no lasting significance on my life.
So I tried to approach this strange looking man, who I knew was the person I needed to talk to, but was obstructed from doing so by several actors who jumped in front of me, demanding an explanation to the rumors they'd heard about me leaving for someplace far away the next day. After pushing them aside & promising them an explanation later I finally made my way to the young man. Now, if you knew what my dream self wanted to say to this young man (& taking into account the fact that I only had one day left on Earth), you'd understand why it was so hard for me to confront him. And, were I a braver soul, I might divulge what my dream self did say, but, seeing as this confession lay just a little too close for comfort to some of my real feelings, I'll leave it to your imaginations to think of something terribly witty or romantic or heart-breaking for my dream-self to say.
Now, because this confession did hit so close to home & did involve a lot of emotional gar-baj, I began to cry. As this happened, the young man began to get pulled away as I had been before so I blurted out, "Yes, I'm leaving for some place far away tomorrow, but I wanted you to know, before I left, that *insert your imaginary response for what I might have said*!!" At my saying this, the young man stopped & he too began to cry, but, much to my horror, he had been pulled out into the busy street where he was nearly hit by a car, but was pulled out of the way just in time. (bizarre, I know, but I don't choose the dreams, I just experience them)
Thankfully, I woke up after that fiasco, a little disappointed that I wasn't able to find my last couple of people to whom I owed a talk, but relieved nonetheless that it was all just a dream. (the other confessions also hit too close to reality for me to reveal what/whom they were concerning, so feel free to use your imagination once again)
So what's the moral of this story? Could it be a sign from God that I need to let these people in my life know my true feelings for them? Or is it simply a sign that I probably shouldn't preface my bedtime with Talladega Frights, some melatonin, and an MTV2 marathon of Viva la Bam? Either way, it definitely got me thinking about what unfinished business I would tie up if I knew I were going to be with my savior tomorrow, which, if nothing else, has provided me with material for this crazy blog entry. So, hopefully you too have now been provoked into thinking about the morbid fact of life that is your impending death, how you're going to spend the rest of your life, and how you'll treat the people in it.
until next time,
mjl.
