Watching my friend miss her chance and reclaim it too late. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm looking at an elderly relative of a neighborhood friend I had while growing up. She's in the garden of my back yard. She berates my friend, saying, "I just wish you'd done that role!" 

My neighborhood friend's face appears on a light blue screen. She's quite elderly now too. Her hair is gray, and she has many sags and wrinkles in her face. And she wears a scarf. But she seems so hurt and motivated by her elderly relative's disappointment in her. 

She gives an incredible performance of a role that she was supposed to do as a young woman. There's so much passion in her face and voice. Every line is delivered so far and above what one would expect from the writing. It elevates the script to something it probably wasn't before. 

But as beautiful as this is, it's also tragic to watch, because you know this performance which has been refined almost to perfection is decades too late. The audition for the role in the film is long gone. 

INTERPRETATION

I seem to be developing a dream theme of: "I missed my opportunity, and it will never come again." I say this because this is the theme of the ballerina and Louis C.K. dreams I just had too. 

By the way, although $100 is too much for me to spend on something that isn't directly tied to my survival right now, I did spend $5 to watch the show, and it's incredible. It's so funny. I am laughing out loud frequently and consistently throughout the whole thing, which is very unusual to do at all. You especially notice how unusual it is to laugh out loud in front of a screen when you realize how much scrolling you do, how many really solid jokes you pass, and how silent you are the whole time.

I think I might be developing this theme because I've been taking so many tests for the past several months. You only get one chance to get every answer correct before time is up.

But I think that in this dream, I'm mixing that test-taking idea with the idea that life only happens once. And it's so easy to passively watch life pass by without risking anything personal. I guess I worry that I'll regret not pushing myself harder, creatively-speaking.