I’ve got some dreams to make true

In graduating and moving to a new city and new school and meeting new people, I’m asked the same question over and over:

So, what do you want to do with your life?

I usually explain to them about what I’m studying, how I’d like to become a teacher and work with deaf kids in a mainstreamed setting and this is always met with interest.  But I have another dream too.

I dream that I have a healthy family, a loving husband and a safe home.  I dream that I am financially secure and can support my family.  That I raise my children to be happy and strong and that I die before I realize death is coming.

Of course, that’s really not what people are asking about, so I keep it to myself.  But that’s what I want to do with my life.

On being medicated

Medication messes with your head. This isn’t the painfully obvious statement that it sounds like.

Dreams: I didn’t expect the dreams. Dreams on medication are vivid and multiple. Before, I didn’t dream that much and didn’t often remember them. Now I dream constantly and usually remember at least one dream I had the night before. Sometimes, if I’m dreaming about being in my room at night, I can’t tell if it’s a dream or if it really happened. Because, and this deserves mentioning twice, dreams on medication are vivid. Now it isn’t unusual for me to wake up in the middle of acting out my action in the dream. I recently woke up in the middle of handing someone money and the feel of the money in my hand dissolved. Weirdest feeling ever. I’ve taken to sleeping with my room unlocked because I don’t want to wake up somewhere on campus without any way of getting back in my room.

The ability to stop thinking: I’m a worrier. At times like this, at the end of the year with so much work to do, I worry almost constantly. With the medication, I’ve discovered an ability that I didn’t think I had; I can stop worrying. I can take a break, a shower, a walk and come back to the project or thought without so much worry tagged onto it. This extends to bad moods too. I can now go to bed after a bad day and expect a good day to follow it.

Stability: It is extremely tiring and fairly unsettling to turn moods on a dime. Usually there wouldn’t be any provocation from good to bad or bad to good except a turn of phrase or passing thought. I don’t do that anymore and that’s such a relief. I still have bad and good days, but the bad days are bad and the good days are good. There aren’t any surprises.