High School Nightmares

One of my nieces started high school this fall. She was pretty nervous about it and while talking I mentioned I still have reoccurring dreams where I’m in high school. I’m late for class, haven’t done the assignment and need to get my books from my locker. But I’ve forgotten the combination. I also have forgotten where my class is. Because it’s been twenty years since I was last in high school.

She mentioned that they don’t have lockers anymore. They have to carry everything with them and do a lot of it on their computers anyways. That hopeless feeling for forgetting your locker combination is apparently a relic of the past now. So I felt old.

But even still, why does something like that stick with you over all this time? I never actually forgot my combination either so it’s not like I’m remembering an incident. Merely the fear of a potential incident occurring. And it still terrorizes my dreams after all this time.

Maybe these old fears are like scary movies. Our bodies want to feel scared but without being in real danger because monsters aren’t real. Just like, when I wake up, I remember that I’m a grown up and I don’t have an English paper due tomorrow, nor do I have a locker. That is quite a nice feeling.