Dorm Life

I had the strangest dream last night...

For reasons I was not really sure of at the time, I was trying to find something that I knew I had somewhere, but could not find it. It's not as if I had lots of places to look. There was the closet, the area above the closet where my trunk and my suitcases were stored. There was the area below my elevated bed where the desk and the beanbag chair were set, the bureau and the book case.

Where was it? I was unclear as to what I was actually looking for, but I had to find it. Perhaps it was in the car. I left the room turning to say "bye bye" to Saga and discovered that she wasn't anywhere to be seen either. Strange!

Outside, my car was nowhere in sight. The parking lot had hundreds of cars and none of them was the familiar blue Honda hybrid. In fact, none of them looked newer than about thirty years old period! There were no Hybrids period. There were also no Hummers,

I turned to go back into the house and discovered that the familiar green and brown wood structure I have lived in for eight years was now a low-slung red brick building. The pines and aspens had somehow been replaced overnight with Palms and Jacarandas! This wasn't my home, it was the dorm I had lived in in college. This was UCF.

"It's like that story Replay!" I thought to myself. Strangely, this was the thought that brought realization. I'd never heard of Ken Grimwood in college. I hadn't heard of his novel about a man who dies in 1988 only to wake-up the next morning in his college dorm room and discover it is 1963 again. It was only a couple months ago that I read a review of the book and decided that I wanted to read it. Perhaps that was why I was having this odd dream. (This is a dream?)

I realized that it must be... that is why I remember having all this stuff in my home that is nowhere to be seen. That must be why the parking lot if full of cars I don't recognize and my home looks like the dorms at the University of Central Florida. That must be why Lakewood suddenly looks (and feels - God! It's humid here!) like the eastern outskirts of Orlando!

Thinking this, I looked around. The grass I was standing on became a dark blue duvet, the hedges around Polk Hall became a bookcase. The sound of distant voices became real and the humidity resolved it into the hot breath of my lovely Saga staring intently at my face; her nose only an inch from my own.

I know why I dreamt of UCF, I've been researching colleges. I want to (finally) get my Masters degree. UCF is one of the schools I am looking at, they have a program that sounds like exactly what I am looking for. It has been on my mind of late and I have been chatting with some old friends from my college days.

So, the mystery is solved. I was revisiting in my mind the Confederate Jasmine, Palms, and Jacaranda's of my old alma mater. I remember "adults" when I was in college admonishing me that my college days would be the happiest of my life. Well, they were good, but there have been plenty of great times since! If I were there today to tell the me of that day one thing it wouldn't be that College was the happiest time of my life but that every day is to be enjoyed. Never miss the opportunity to learn something; never pass-up the chance to make a friend. College may be the last time many people do this, but not if they are smart - or lucky!

Wherever you are today, I hope you'll learn something and make a new friend today!

Don Bergquist - August 26. 2008 - Lakewood, Colorado, USA