It was evening. I was in a conversion van with my parents. My mother was in one of the back seats, my stepdad was in the passenger seat and I was in the driver seat. It was just us three. My mom kept expressing worry about me driving the van because I hadn't any experience doing so. My stepdad felt I could figure it out and continued to say so whenever she'd get concerned or if I'd start to wonder that she's right.
The van, it turned out, belonged to my stepfather. It was uncomfortable to drive because the seat was compromised. My butt was half on top of a strange curved cushion that was probably supposed to support someone's low back. I didn't have room between that and the steering wheel to slip my butt down onto the regular seat 100%.
Physically uncomfortable and doing my best to ignore my mom's concern so I could drive and keep us safe. I pulled onto a city road that was supposed to turn into a highway but it narrowed into an icy backroad that I could no longer drive on.
I had to stop the van and get out. My parents inside, I checked the ground to see if I was really seeing this: blue tiles of ice forming a slide going down the side of a mountain. The van was never going to make it. I knew I couldn't drive it down, even with my stepfather's best intentions to get me past whatever partitions of concern my mother set up.
I admitted that I couldn't drive us down there, that it wasn't safe. My mom didn't choose to say anything except she hoped we'd be alright. I told them I'd go ahead down on my own. Somehow, I knew the beautiful slide would end somewhere normal. I felt that as long as I didn't fight it, and as long as I just treated this like one would a water slide (just sit on the icy tiles and let gravity do its job) everything would be fine.
There was unspoken agreement that I'd see my parents again later and I went ahead, walking the icy road until I had to sit down and let the slope draw me down and through. Partway down I saw there were people up ahead of me (though they weren't close enough to detail or talk to) and that made me feel even less worried about the ride down. I was even starting to have fun. The ice was beautifully colored. The air was crisp and refreshing. The movement was swift and adventurous. Whee! :)
I could sense the end was coming before I arrived there. Before I could wonder what it would be like, I arrived at the bottom where there was no longer ice, just simple grass and a tiny stream of water, bed rock, and daylight. I saw the people who went ahead of me were about to get in a car and take off, so I asked to hitch a ride to a hotel, assuming we'd find one.
A girl who'd taken the slide before said after the last time she went down and she got home she slept for seventeen days. We laughed.
That's when I woke up.
I think it's important to remember certain dreams. Dreams can help us work through things sometimes - even free us from beliefs we no longer need. I reread this and think I must finally be feeling comfortable leaving the not-exactly-custom-made-for-me lifestyle of my parents to seek my own adventure....and isn't that what this blog happens to be about?
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