i’m otw

Last night, I had a dream that my friends and I were going on a trip. Everyone except me had priority screening, so while they breezed through security, I was stopped, questioned, and sent elsewhere to pick up my ticket.

By the time I got my ticket, the security line had gotten longer and longer, so my friends decided to go ahead and said we’d meet at the gate. I got there so late that everyone had already boarded and the gate was closed. After banging on the door, the agent opened it and said I could still get on, only for me to realize that I had left my luggage at the hotel.

I ran back to the hotel, only to realize that I couldn’t remember which room I was staying in. I knew I wouldn’t make it back in time. The flight departed, and my friends left without me. Frantic to catch the next one, I found out that the only option was a flight two days later, from a different airport, on a different airline.

And yet, despite all the roadblocks, I eventually made it there.

Then the dream ended.

—

I can’t help but wonder if the dream is about entering a new chapter on a timeline that looks different from everyone else’s. My friends and I are headed to the same destination, but I keep getting separated from them and rerouted along the way. I felt left behind, but wonder if maybe I’m simply taking a different path.

I have friends who are married, have kids, own homes in the suburbs, and seem to have their lives neatly figured out. Sometimes, seeing them makes me feel like I’m “falling behind” because I didn’t take the same path. I just moved back after living overseas, and in some ways, I feel like I’m starting a new chapter while people around me seem several chapters ahead. In fact, are we even reading the same book?

But then I remember that the grass is always greener on the other side. While I sometimes look at their lives and wonder what it would be like to have the stability and certainty they seem to have, they look at my life and tell me they wish they had the same freedom to explore, travel, and figure things out as they go. I guess we’re all looking at the parts of each other’s lives we don’t have.

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit corny, the hotel room ended up being one number off from the apartment I just moved into, and the door code was my birthday. Maybe the dream was telling me that I’m closer to where I’m supposed to be than I think, and that the key is me.

At the end of it all, I still reached the destination. Maybe the path everyone else takes doesn’t have to be the path I take. It doesn’t mean mine is wrong. It’s just different.

Anyway, I’m otw. Text you when I get there.