At Least I Wasn't Naked

School always started the Wednesday after Labor Day. I think my college even began its term after Labor Day because we had 12.5-week semesters, rather than the more common 14-week terms, but I honestly don't completely remember. I really liked college and always looked forward to going back, so we could have started the middle of August and I would have been fine with that. Something's changed, though; my friends who are teachers or guidance counselors all go back to school the end of this week, with the students starting class Monday, a full week before Labor Day. Where did the summer go?

During times of transition I have dreams where past and present are confused. This happens to many of us, and the shape of my dreams also follows the predictable: I have to return to college or high school because someone has discovered I was missing credits for graduation, and I can no longer keep up with the classes. Or I'm back in college or high school and ready to graduate but it turns out there's one class I was registered for that I'd completely forgotten about, and I have to take a final exam in Chemistry V or something like that when I've never been to one class. Or I'm in college and it's my college but I don't know anyone. Or I'm naked and have to give an oral report.

Last night I dreamed that I was a senior in college, although I was my current age. The dream was populated with my real college classmates, all of us fortysomethings. The campus had been moved so some urban center, though, when in actuality my alma mater comprises thousands of acres in central Virginia. We are about to graduate, and are all bar-hopping. I find out that I'm going to receive some sort of award and will have to make a speech at graduation, and although I realize I should call it a night and go home to prepare I stay out with my friends. Suddenly it's the next day, after the ceremony, and I have no recollection of my speech, what I said, how it went. I don't think my lapse has to do with being drunk, because in the dream I'm not drunk. It was just some sort of blackout.

Everyone acts like I did well, that my speech was great. I'm upset because I can't recall any of it, and I rush around the town looking for someone who has recorded the ceremony. During my search I run into various friends' parents, not just college friends but parents of friends from as far back as elementary school. All ask me what I'm looking for, and when I tell them it's documentary evidence of my speech, they sigh and tell me they can't help me.

I gave myself until the end of the summer to decide what I'm going to do now that my business has been sold. I still have no idea. Clearly, the past can't help me. At least, not in my dreams.