bridges and dreams

I dreamt yesterday that the molars on my upper right jaw all fell out. I discovered that one tooth was coming loose and it fell out of my mouth and into my hand. The rest followed in a painless but very disturbing cascade. I've had this dream before, more than a couple of times even. But this time I was much more distressed and upset during the dream, and it stayed with me even after I woke up.

Looking up the meaning for "teeth falling out dream," I found that this dream is apparently not uncommon, I suppose like falling dreams or running away dreams. It gave me a variety of possible meanings for why I might be having it. Fear of embarrassment, powerlessness, insecurity, and getting older were all possible meanings. Nice. One of my friends did say something about the tooth fairy and money coming my way in the future, but that sounds too much like a fortune cookie fortune to be accurate.

Truth be told, I have been feeling worried about my future, finding a career interest while I'm in school and just in general figuring out the next steps I'm going to take. I'll never be one of those people who plan their lives ten steps in advance and feel happiest doing five things at the same time. I'll be happy if I can decide what my next two steps are, or even just one... and actually take it. Being in grad school is a good direction for me, but there's always more that I feel like I need to be doing, and a lot that I'm not. So I can see why I had that dream; I feel surrounded by unmade decisions and untaken steps.

When life feels chaotic, one thing that helps give me perspective is walking to one of the bridges nearby. Walking across the bridge and looking out over the river always gives me a moment of quiet in the midst of whatever else is going on. I love it because although I'm still very much still in the city, it's just a little bit away from the busy-ness of urban life. If I stand in the middle of the bridge I can look at the river with the trees on its banks and get a small moment of nature.

I wonder if my love of bridges is also because bridges are always going somewhere. Point A to Point B, here to there. The traffic flows one of two ways and it's not hard to figure out how to get there too. I feel like I've been standing in the middle for a while, trying to decide which way to go. I think maybe I'm making it a lot harder than it is. If I just choose a direction and go with it, I'll eventually reach the next step. Now if I can just find my teeth...