Lost in a dream.

Dreams are funny things, aren't they? They can be so vivid sometimes--like a memory. To this day I don't know if I've gone waterskiing or not. I have this vague memory of a time but it's just as likely to have been implanted during a sleep-induced state. Like an alien baby.

Just this morning I had a dream involving one of my unwed friends. In this dream my friend was a mother and it wasn't until her adorable, pointy-faced child was brilliantly adding letters together that I realized all the implications of such motherhood--no, not that I could exploit him for money making schemes, but I didn't know who the father was. The immediate feelings of distraught disappointment actually woke me up, and in the remnants of sleepy remembrance I doubted the fidelity of this friend; for no other reason than the ghostly vision of a blue-eyed babe, straight brown hair falling into his eyes.

I've had dreams before about made up fights or where someone's been really mean to me and I wake up feeling like I need to make amends or get the other person to apologize for their very unkind and unwarranted actions...in fact, I've actually done that.

Now, not all my dreams are strangely and emotionally tied to reality, I also have perfectly normal dreams sometimes. Dreams where I steal a bus and accidentally drive it off the edge of a cliff, landing unharmed by a cabin in the woods wearing Aladdin's clothes. Normal.

I still argue that unless I'm dreaming about sparkly vampires making lust in hidden groves of trees, I'm doing all right.

It is enough...

All my life I've been dogmatically pursuing some idea of greatness. Some pinnacle vision. Some unachievable unknown.

All my life I have failed in obtaining it.

Sometime during my early existence I convinced myself that perfection is solely a mortal quest; that the omnipresent demands it; that it's expected of our weak flesh and brittle bones, our failing hearts and finite minds.

Slowly, I'm beginning to realize the inevitable consequence of such thinking, the truth behind the inward lies -- I do not know how to be good enough. I only know how to try to be perfect. So when my floundering missteps can no longer be swept under the vast rug of human nature, when the stark contrast between myself and attainable good crashes down upon the conscience of my mind...I shrink. Instead of standing boldly and being counted, unworthy as I am, I shrink from the awful portent of my inadequacy and in my anguish I admit I must not be trying hard enough.

...but these are not the final verses.

One clear and generously lucent day, I was given a glimpse of a feeling. A recognition -- that though I have done nothing worth true merit, I have done something, and I have done something good. I have believed. I have trusted. I have tried, failure after failure, to the best of my limited ability...and it is enough. It is enough to shed the heavy layers of my deepest shame. It is enough to stop frantically bailing water from my floating boat. It is enough to know that there is a reaching beyond my farthest reaching. To know that every good day brings me closer to taking that one day back for the rest of my life.

The strangest thing...

I have two jump drives. At first it seemed like one too many but since those youthfully ignorant days I have found them unusually convenient. I leave one in my purse and keep the other one in my backpack. The ability to transfer files is always at my fingertips...well, that is...until today.

Today I wanted to convert some pictures from a file type I cannot use on my computer to one I can. Don't worry, that's as much tech-speak as you'll be getting from me today. So I brought my extra jump drive to school to make the ever important conversion...and spaced it completely. I left it there. A thing I didn't realize until I got home at 5:00 to 10 emails from a false email address under a false name generously sending me all the files from it (which I originally thought was a virus). I greatly appreciated it until I read this:

"Sorry i couldnt get the drive back to you but at least you have the files"

and later this:

"Next time be more careful about leaving your stuff around. Most people wouldn't even be nice enough to send you your files."

I'm sorry. What? "COULDN'T get the drive back to you." Couldn't. As if it magically dissipated. As if there was a group of them conspiring to keep it and he so Reuben-esquely suggested to spare my life. He even set up an account on MediaFire, a free file hosting website, to make sure I got everything. When I tried to write him back to say thanks and "Uh, what exactly happened to my jump drive," the email address was no longer valid. It would have taken him less of an effort to just give me my property back. What do jump drives cost these days? Like $20? I mean, he must have been seriously hurting for some portable data storage.

Yes...I know I should be grateful. I am very glad to have not lost any files, but what's the deal with this faux-generosity, this posturing at integrity, this cowardly attempt to protect his weaseling identity?

So far it's just served to make me really angry.