What a way to wake up

I woke up at 6ish this morning because I'd had a nightmare. Not the sort of nightmare that is scary in a horror sort of way, no monsters or killers, no dark and stormy nights, nothing out of your typical dark suspense-horror movie. This was the sort of "nightmare" that put me in a completely realistic situation, gave me a completely plausible outcome, albeit one that I apparently found unfavorable, and jolted me awake in my awareness that my dream had betrayed an emotional reality to me.

I dreamed that it was Internship assignment day (which is coming up in real life on April 23). Now, the process to get to this point has been fairly intense. I interviewed with seven internship supervisors in the greater Chicagoland area. At the end of the two weeks of interviews, I submitted a list of sites that I'd be willing to intern at (in order of preference), and all the supervisors submitted a list of students they'd interviewed (in order of preference). Between then and April 23, the field education office matches up students to sites based on these lists of preference, and I think this means that if a supervisor and a student both have each other ranked number one, they are a lock for the site. This is all very high-pressure to me. I have fears that none of my top choices put me at the top, or that my number one choice put me second, and the person he ranked first also ranked him first, so I lose out...I liked all of the sites with whom I interviewed, and I'd do fine at any of them, but the truth is that two of them are in Rockford, which is a heftier commute than I'd like, and I've found myself growing overly attached to my top three sites, which is unhealthy. It leads to disappointment. But I've assumed that when assignment time comes, I'll be fine with whatever site they give me. I assume that if I don't get any of my top sites I'll question why other might have gotten them, and why I mistakenly assumed that I had clicked so well with those sites, and I'm sure I'll be a little jealous or disappointed, but in the long run, I have been certain that I will be fine, no matter what my assignment. After all the interviews, I said to myself that I'd be happy at any of the sites. But....is that really true?

In my dream, I got assigned to one of the Rockford sites, and burst into tears. I apparently couldn't handle not getting one of my top choices, and I really really couldn't handle thinking about the commute. In real life, the supervisor of this site and I got along really well, but Rockford is still close to 2 hours away. So in my dream, I think that my true feelings about being assigned to Internship in Rockford came through. And I woke up, grateful that it was only a dream, and that I still had a chance to end up at one of my top choices, or at least at a church closer than Rockford...but I also woke up haunted by the reality that Internship assignment could go exactly like it did in my dream. That I'm too attached to the idea of some of the sites, and too sure of myself that I'd actually have made a good enough impression on the supervisors to have them rank me highly. That I might actually cry if I am handed a long commute. That I'll be completely jealous of those who got the sites that I had my...err... sights set on.

And then, in the midst of this self-reflective fog, I looked out the window. Yikes. It was SNOWING SIDEWAYS. It's April. But there it was - a stream of large, wet, puffy snowflakes blowing sideways through the air with a very evil-sounding wind. The cat freaked out at the wind, and ran around the apartment, meowing at the windows. I wished that I could just stay in bed for the rest of the day and not have to get up and go anywhere. And I got grumpy. I love snow. I get sad when my winters aren't snowy. But when it's mid-April....I'm ready for spring. I really am.