Weird one last night.
Back at school and doing A-levels, but realising I'd slipped up badly. I'd been slacking and missing lessons, for one thing, and either lying or fabricating excuses to cover for this. I realised that when I went into school, I was going to be expelled for it, no question, and knowing it was all my own fault made this more painful, humiliating and depressing. I also had sharp memories of a couple of the most sarcastic and abrasive teachers of the time who would deal with the expulsion. I wondered how I was going to explain this to family, for one thing.
The school uniform I had to wear involved shorts. it also involved one of the old-fashioned school caps - my school had only just ditched those in my year of entry, but I felt as if the uniform - and the Jennings/William Brown school cap - was rubbing it in re humiliation and embarrassment. It was also in the royal blue that was, in 1973-75, School colours...
In other dreams:
I've written here before, in a sort of "getting it off my chest" confessional sort of way - about a girl I got a bit obsessive about nearly forty years ago, and how it all got a bit stalker-ish. (still not proud of that, but - bad time) Particularly during the lockdown year, I ended up revisiting this time and had a few uncomfortable and emotionally intense dreams about her.
Well... S has been in my dreams again recently. It's fair to say that the tone and emotional landscape of the dreams is different. In one I was in a bad situation and had to ask her, humbly and respectfully, for advice as to the best route to take to leave the town we were both in and get myself on the right route out. She considered this and asked me to wait while she looked things up. I don't recall what happened next, but I recall travelling on a bus through a landscape that looked progressively less "inner-city" and more ordered.
Last night, we ended up playing some sort of ball game together, possibly on an outdoor basketball court or playing area that had a light fence, but no wall, on a pleasant sunny day. The atmosphere was friendly and straightforward. There was no intensity or romantic or other desire on my part - just appreciating her for what she was while she seemed to have no reserve or ill-will towards me. Effectively, the vibe was one of two people who respected each other as friends, catching up. I got the feeling that this was the sort of nodding casual friendship we were meant to have had back then in the 1980s.... but I'd effed it up by getting intense. A lesson learnt, maybe?