An all-new sort of anxiety dream

For years I had this recurring dream that I was forced to go back to high school. Some paperwork would go missing or something, and I'd have to go back and retake my final year. Only, no one else had changed. I'd be dropped into high school at my current age, while everyone else was still high-school-aged, as though I had traveled back in time somehow. I'd be stuck there, wandering the halls with no idea of what my classes were, where I was supposed to go, what my locker combination was, slowly filling with dread as I realized that I was going to have to take algebra and gym class AGAIN, that it would impossible to slip out for a quick drink, that all my years living on my own were now apparently useless, that I was a functional adult only in my head because I was once again in high school.

Then I'd wake up in a cold sweat.

I stopped having those dreams around about the time of my high school reunion, and later I found out most people have some variety of that dream.

Last night I dreamed that I was being forced to go back to JUNIOR HIGH.

This is an all-new and scarier level of anxiety dream.

In this dream, I had to go back to middle school ostensibly because I was "writing a book." In my head, I knew I wasn't in fact writing a book, but I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing there. More importantly, I am very obviously too old to be attending junior high, and this was causing problems in the dream, as all the students were mistaking me for an authority figure, and all the authority figures were trying to treat me like a student. I couldn't seem to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, and (unlike the previous high school dreams) I didn't know anyone there.

So, welcome to my world, y'all. Apparently I'm so stressed I've catapulted right over high school and returned to where it all went bad, in junior high.

In better news, DH's unemployment money started today, and we'll have some visitors this weekend. My stepson is coming to visit for ten days, and my sister-in-law and her family will be in town for the weekend. I broke down and bought the first real groceries I've bought for six weeks, and we'll have a fine old-fashioned barbecue this Saturday.