October 17, 2005
Cajun Dreams and Other Things
I read somewhere that all people dream every night. Perhaps, but I rarely remember them. It probably has to do with burning the candle at both ends during my waking hours, crashing into bed for some fitful sleep then waking to the alarm clock in the pre-dawn hours. So it's always a treat for me to actually recall a dream during full consciousness. I'm still confounded as to why I would dream about the Cajun -- it's been over three years since our goodbyes were said so it's not like it was a topical subject.
There was an old ad campaign that my company ran, "The Citi never sleeps." It's true, it never does. Sometimes it feels like its employees never do either. Most nights and some weekends a trip to the office will find little knots of workers toiling away on their projects. It comes and goes -- I've been up at work till all hours myself from time to time -- it depends on the project and how aggressive the project plan is. Sometimes I can travel by VPN into the office, sometimes I have to go there.
It takes its toll after a while which is why downtime between projects is so important. But there's always the next one, and my latest is starting to ramp up. So while I'm not up there all the time right now, I seem to think about it most of the time. It screws up your nerves and your sleep patterns. I try to battle it the way I always do, exercise and pounding the stuffing out of a little tennis ball. I used to blog and journal faithfully, but I seem to have gotten out of the habit.
Of course there are reasons. My father-in-law had his surgery as planned, but his recovery has been slow. I hate hosptials, especially CCU. The last time I saw my dad alive was in Baylor's CCU. Twenty-five years have brought advances in design and Baylor Grapevine's CCU is a lot friendlier to the family. But still the memories come flooding back.
We wound up selling our house and moving a little closer to Denise's parents. What used to be a five minute drive is now a five minute walk. The new house is OK, but nothing special. I view it as a blank canvas -- plenty to do! I miss the storage space we had in the old house but don't miss the yard maintenance required for a half acre lot. I can mow this one in fifteen minutes. Ah, but there's that missing storage space. Tomorrow I meet with a contractor to see about building a storage building in the back.
Bailey finally has wheels of her own and we hardly see her anymore. Between school, band, her job and her social schedule she's gone most of the time. I miss seeing her most of the time, but I don't miss being her taxi driver. I'm amazed at her energy level and how she seems to find time to do all of the stuff that a normal teen does while keeping her grades up.
So with all that is going on and all that is on my mind it's puzzling to me that I should dream about the Cajun. As always, I pray that she's doing well and is happy in her new life. But rather than dwell on the significance of the dream (which I'm sure was due to a random connection in some synapse), I paused to think about her before going about my business today. In her honor tonite I enjoyed a bottle of Pinot Noir with dinner with the hope that it will make me sleepy later.
Life goes on, and tomorrow's another working day. The Citi may never sleep, but I hope that I do.
Posted by mjwoods at October 17, 2005 09:18 PM