Spooky Mormon Hell Dreams

I often have very vivid dreams, and when I wake up they stick with me through the rest of the day. It doesn't happen all the time, but I frequently find myself thinking about my dreams. There are particular dreams that I have over and over, the typical "naked in public", forgot my shoes, etc. One that I often have is that I go back to this store where I used to work and my manager comes up to me and is irritated because she's been putting me on the schedule (for the past 14 years) and I haven't been showing up. She wants to know if I ever plan on showing up. I have that one at least once a month.

The repeating dream that I have the most often is that I'm back on my mission. Actually, it's not that I'm back, as much as I'm off on ANOTHER mission. In my dreams I'm at my current age, but I'm starting out a second mission with a bunch of pimply 18/19 year olds. For some reason (that I never know of in the dream) I was required to go on a second mission. I had to quit my job, sell my house, and send my dogs to live with my parents. There was no way to get out of it, and I am PISSED. Throughout the entire dream, I am FURIOUS that I'm on a mission again. I'm annoyed at every part of it. The missionaries are annoying. I'm irritated at the rules, and the rules are more strict. I'm with a bunch of young elders who think they know everything, and they're trying to tell me how to do everything like I'm stupid. I keep telling them that I know how to do it because I already finished a mission.

The other part is that since I haven't been attending church for the past 12 years, I have to fake it with them. In my dream the other missionaries say stuff about the church that has apparently changed in the time that I haven't been going, and I don't know about it. I have to pretend that I know and research to figure out what has changed since I stopped attending. It's all very frustrating.

I usually wake up from this dream feeling very annoyed. The funny part of this second mission is that I am not a Spanish-speaking missionary. That is another thing in the dream that bothers me. My Spanish is very good. I should be a Spanish-speaking missionary. Sometimes in my dream I try to speak Spanish and the other elders tell me I'm not allowed to because I wasn't called on a Spanish-speaking mission. I tell them it doesn't matter because I already know Spanish, but apparently the "rules" say that if you're not called to speak Spanish, you're not allowed to. Weird, huh?

The funny thing is that I didn't hate my mission. It was good. (My mission president is another story though...) Please tell me I'm not the only one who has this "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream". On the bright side, at least in my dream Jesus doesn't call me a dick. :)

All my exes live in Texas

Actually he lives in Seattle. Here's the thing, I'm going to Seattle in a few weeks (over Valentine's Day weekend actually). Other than the airport, I haven't been to Seattle in a few years. The last time I was there I posted pics on Facebook about my trip, and the day I returned he messaged me on Facebook and asked if I was still in town. He wanted to get together. I was already home, so we didn't meet up. He said that if I'm ever in town again I should let him know.

We didn't really date long, just a month or so, and it was a LONG time ago (17 years, to be exact). We met through mutual friends at BYU. He was still very closeted, and was going to therapy sessions at BYU to help him overcome his SSA (a term I can't stand using, by the way). He went through periods where he wanted to be with me and then he would feel guilty and not call or come over for days. Then he'd come over, then he'd feel guilty (nothing physical ever happened other than kissing), then he'd stay away, etc., etc. It was one of those vicious circles. He couldn't decide if he was gay, straight, bi, confused, or what.

He was in his junior year at BYU, and I was in my first year teaching. Many days I'd come home from work and he'd come over. We'd cook dinner together, watch some tv on the couch, and then he'd sit and do homework while I graded papers. It was wonderful, it was romantic, it was just what I wanted. I really enjoyed spending time with him. He didn't like going out in public much, because he was afraid someone would see us. After weeks of this back and forth, he finally called to tell me that he just couldn't continue dating me because he really, truly wanted to be straight and he couldn't do that if we were seeing each other. Oh, by the way, that was on Valentine's Day. 

He graduated a year or so later, and right before he left Provo he called me up out of the blue and wanted to go to dinner. We did, it was nice, he moved, life went on. Years later when I got on Facebook I looked him up and friended him, he accepted. We've communicated a little bit the past few years, but nothing really substantial. From his own postings on Facebook (no, I'm NOT a stalker) he is still single. He doesn't post anything gay related, so I don't even know what his "status" is. Is he dating guys? Is he dating girls? It just looks like he works, hangs out with his sister's family, and does sky diving.

Anyhow, I'm not sure what to do. I'm perfectly able to go to Seattle and not call him. I don't have to post pictures to Facebook. It's not like I need to see him. But I don't like being rude. I don't even know if he really wanted to see me, or was he just being nice. You know how you run into someone from your past and you both make the "Yeah, let's stay in touch" comments, but you never really mean it? I'm not even sure why I'm even spending so much time today thinking about this. I guess it's because I saw him posting stuff on Facebook today about some big game that's important to Seattle. The Skyhawks or something...  (Kidding! I'm not THAT gay!!) Seeing his post made me think about him, which made me think about my last Seattle trip, which made me think about my upcoming trip, which then made me think about whether or not I should give him a call.