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Monday, May 17, 2004

three more questions

These are from Jenn. Good questions! (if you're going 'huh?' about this whole three questions thing, see the first paragraph of this entry for an explanation.)

1. what types of dreams/nightmares do you have and what do you make of them?
I don't usually remember what I dream (or dream at all, whichever). But the dreams I do remember are generally pretty classic easily-interpreted dreams. Either I'm losing my teeth (which supposedly means I'm insecure about my appearance, which I can say OK to) or everything possible is going wrong in an out-of-control way, or my husband is nonchalantly announcing that he's leaving, or I'm nonchalantly having an affair, which is something I would never do, and in the dream I'm always worried about hurting my husband, and when I wake up I always feel creeped out (and unreasonably guilty) that I dreamed something so awful. That last type I don't pretend to understand. Sometimes I wonder why God gave us so little control over our dreams.

2. what action would you take if you ever found out that your children smoked pot or drank?
Oh my. I'm glad that this worry is years in the future for me. If this happened the first issue I would address is why they were doing it, and we'd have some serious discussions about that, and then we'd look at where they were getting it, and we'd be pretty hard-nosed about who his/her friends were and what they were doing and how much time they spent unsupervised. As one of my brother's student's mothers used to say to the student, "his world would get a lot smaller for a while." Not just as punishment but to help effect a change in priorities.

3. What do you think you'd be doing with your life if you never got married or had children?
Interesting question! It is amazing how many factors this would depend on. Before I decided to marry I was thinking of heading for a Christian college in Pensacola, Florida -- except I'd pretty much decided NOT to go there for a few reasons. Then I was going to go to the local junior college and "get basics out of the way" while I decided what I wanted to do with my life. I'd just begun to veer away from the idea of teaching, which had been my life goal since fourth grade. (Can you tell that the year I was 18 was a year of HUGE change and upheaval for me?) So I imagine that if I'd not married, I'd probably have wound up with a degree in something (librarianship maybe?), working somewhere near here but probably not actually in town. I'd have an apartment, a cat, hundreds of books, a really great stereo system, and some church friends, and I'd be on the lookout for The One. (Thank GOD I don't have to be doing that. Literally. Thank you, God.) However, I'd probably be a lot better at playing the piano than I am now, and I'd have done more traveling. Definitely not enough of a trade-off to make me wish things were different. :-)