Dreaming on Philadelphia

I was recently "friended" by the person with whom I moved from Los Angeles to New York City, back in 1998. I thought about 1998, what was happening, and all of the circumstances under which we finally made the trip across the country. I don't remember the route we took, although that being said, I think it was I-40, pretty much straight across. What I do remember is that storms followed us pretty much from Arizona, all the way to the East coast. Seeing as we were camping most of the time, this posed somewhat of a problem, but it certainly wasn't the end of the world. I believe it took about four days to finish our journey, which was our ultimate goal. We had already selected an apartment on Suffolk and Rivington in the lower east side, and now we just had to set our lives and all of our worldly possessions in place.

About a week before our endeavor of traversing the country commenced, I had a dream, and a very vivid dream at that. It was the sort of dream that would be locked in my memory banks forever. At first I wanted to dismiss the dream, but later realized that it probably was more poignant than I had initially realized. In the dream, I was actually traveling in the truck in which we had all of our various life items. We were actually making the journey to our new home in New York. It was an electric moment, both of us almost overwhelmed with excitement knowing that we would soon be living in New York City. In the dream, we stopped somewhere to get gas and perhaps a bite to eat. I remember I was walking into the truck stop when suddenly somebody stopped me and told me that they had something to tell me. Seeing as it was a dream, I didn't really think anything of it. It was a dream, after all, and why should it matter to me whether or not someone had something to tell me. This is what dreams are for, right? I looked at the person intently, and he said, "There's been a change in plans. You won't be moving to New York after-all. You'll be moving to Philadelphia instead and all of the arrangements have been made for you to continue your life there." In my dream, I immediately began to cry. All of my plans to move to New York had been thwarted, and by some guy in a truck stop in Ohio -- or was it Indiana? Who was he, and how dare he?

I looked around the truck stop to find that my traveling companion was no longer there. I looked behind me, and found that our truck was gone as well, as if it vanished into thin air. I slowly walked to a car that was parked at the side of the building, and without hesitating, pulled a key out of my bag, started the ignition, and began to drive again -- this time solo, and without really knowing where I was going or what I was doing. I reached the East coast, and for some reason all I could see was the New York City skyline, even though I knew that wasn't my final destination. I crossed over one of the bridges into the city, but then looped back over another bridge. I found myself driving over one bridge after another, until I reached my final destination, Philadelphia.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, I don't know.) living in Philadelphia never came about in my life, although the dream of moving there has stuck with me now for ten years. I often wonder the relevance of dreams. Some people place the utmost importance on them, where others recognize them as manifestations of vague memories. I fall somewhere in-between. Was there a message in this dream? Was it a warning? Perhaps I should visit Philadelphia soon and find out.