Faux memories of bygone days

As I've noted numerous times previously, my working years were mostly spent with one large state bureaucracy, the Texas public welfare system. The agency underwent several name changes during my tenure, but its mission stayed more or less the same. I spent my first 2 years 6 months as an eligibility caseworker, and the last 23 years 11 months as a unit supervisor. After devoting 26 years 5 months of my life to doing essentially the same thing over and over again, day after day, month after month, year after year, it's not too surprising that I have a particular recurring dream.

Actually, the term "recurring" isn't accurate since it implies I have the same dream repeatedly, when in practice the structural characteristics of the dream are the same, but the details change. I seem to have what I call My Welfare Department Dream at least once per week, sometimes more often.

Here's the setup: All the action will occur in an office building which is a composite of numerous locations where I served my 26-year sentence, and all the characters will be people I worked with and knew well over that time span -- they all look the same as they did when I first met them. People I worked with in 1975 pop up beside others I didn't meet until 1995, for example.

In the dreams I'm always retired, but for some inexplicable reason I'm back at work although I don't seem to have a job title or any routine duties. In each dream I've been given a particular assignment, and it's usually some task I have no idea how to accomplish. I wander from office to office telling people I encounter I won't be around too long since I'm really retired, not employed. They never care, though.

Some nights this dream goes on and on. I'll wake up, go to the bathroom, fall back asleep and damned if the dream doesn't resume, just like some subconscious TiVo's in operation. After those marathons, I get up in the morning as tired as if I've had no sleep at all. Fortunately, there are other times when I only experience a brief segment among more pleasant dreams.

The best thing about my career was that it allowed me to retire at a relatively young age, which in turn gives me time to write the blogs. Having my career trail me into retirement like a devoted puppy via dream sequences probably isn't too great a penalty to pay for freedom.