I had a dream...

Last night I had a dream.  A very disturbing dream.  I dreamt that I was working in a hospital.  In the ICU.  That was not the disturbing part.

You see, in my past life, I was a nurse who worked in ICU.  During the course of my life I had children, mind you I had help.  When the children came I quit working as a nurse at the hospital and started my new life as a nurse at home.  During this time period I put my nursing license on inactive status, with the possibility that "some day" I would go back to work.  I have thought about it quite a bit in the last 5 year.  What is holding me back?  Well, after being inactive for 15 years they kind of make you go back to school to refresh your skills.  In the hospital you are in fact dealing with living people, people who would prefer to stay that way and technology has advanced significantly since the 1990's.  Since there are no re-certification programs here I would have to travel to find a school.  Since my DH already travels quite a bit, coordinating such a program would be more than a bit challenging, not to mention transferring my license from one state to the next is a challenge all it's own.  So I've put it off.

In this dream I was back in the hospital working towards re-activating my license.  I had a preceptor who was following me and showing me the ropes. I also was being evaluated by the head nurse and the director of nursing who always seemed to be following me.  All of this, while perhaps a tad paranoid, seemed reasonable to me.  Funny how in dreams "reasonable" is taken to a whole new level.

The disturbing part of this dream was that I had 5 loads of dirty laundry which I was trying to do at the same time.  Not only was I trying to do the laundry at the hospital, but I was trying to do it without anyone finding out.  I was traveling the elevators 5 floors down to the basement to use the industrial washers and dryers, caring a laundry basket full of dirty clothes trying to look inconspicuous. This required  hourly trips up and down the elevators, of course this was shortly after doing hourly vitals on my patients (of course!)

Not only was I doing the laundry but somehow in this twisted bizarre world of mine I had an vacant patient room where I was hiding the clean laundry.  Then  I would sneak off and fold, because I didn't want the laundry to wrinkle. (how weird is that? I don't ever worry about that now.)  That was the plan...until it was announced that I was to get an admission!  Now I had to find a new hiding place!

The entire dream people kept complementing me on how "organized" and "efficient" I was.  (if they only knew). I awoke covered in sweat, wondering if the dryer was done. Sometime later while drinking my 3rd cup o'joe my daughter said, 'MOM!  I don't have any clean shorts.  I did you do laundry last night?'