I have this frequent dream that I am back in high school, either my mother decided that my grades weren't good enough the first time around and makes me repeat it so I can achieve better ones, or I am just there as my teenage self. If it's me being sent back to high school again, I usually feel mortified and degraded that I have to be back there.

Either way, I get confused about or forget which classes I'm supposed to go to, usually missing them, and I forget to do my homework and start failing that class. In my dream, I can usually get reasonable grades in one or two classes, but not all of them. I'm so afraid of having to disappoint my mother with bad grades, of the guilt that I let her down. It's the worst feeling in the world in these dreams.

That's when I retreat to the library. I often find that I'd rather spend my time in the library than trying to hunt down the classrooms and do the schoolwork. The library is where I get lost looking for books to read, spending the whole day just browsing the shelves. Sometimes, the dream lasts long enough for the school days to end and I usually wind up missing the school bus, because I'm late to get to the bus parking lot, and I have to walk all the way home. Sometimes I get so lost along the way that it seems hopeless that I'll ever get home.

Then I usually wake up.

I just wish I could stop having these dreams....