Half hours on Earth: what are they worth? (I don't know.)

Dream 1. I was with my aunt, with whom I'm very close, and we were visiting and catching up. I was showing her pictures of people I had loved. They were pictures of people from various stages of my life, and I loved and missed them all. I was feeling terribly sad and trying to hold back my tears as I leafed through the pictures. I was also showing her a tattoo I'd gotten across my back. It was a picture of my face when I was old, and there were tears running down my cheeks in the tattoo, as well.

After seeing these things, she shook her head and said, "I can't understand why everyone always wants to live in the past. You act like you're the only one who's ever had your heart broken, like you're the only one who ever felt alone and afraid. All you want to do is look backwards at the things that could have been, the things that didn't work out. You act like there's nothing to look forward to in the future. I just don't understand it."

Dream 2. I was on a boat--probably more like a yacht--and, for whatever reason, we were stuck in the middle of the ocean. We knew we weren't going to be rescued. At the time we had plenty of food and supplies and we could have stretched them out for a very long time. But a large group of people on the boat had gotten together and decided to go out with a bang. Instead of rationing food and water and medicine carefully, they wanted to have an enormous party. They wanted music and dancing and drinking and food as long as they held out and to hell with what happened after they were gone.

I didn't like this idea at all. I kept thinking, I'm going to die quickly with a bunch of idiots because they want to have one last party before they kick the bucket!

For some reason, all I had with me was a container of antibacterial cleaning cloths. While everyone else got drunk and laughed while the could, I ran around frantically trying to clean up every sticky spill that I could find. Within a couple of hours I was completely out of them, and then I didn't know what to do with myself. An older lady on the boat said, "You obviously weren't able to clean up after everyone, so why did you try? You have no control over this. Might as well enjoy the party."