Three Classes Shy

Why do I walk the mesa late at night,
beneath the bell tower’s arch of sun-bleached stone?
Why does the old campus glow so bright
for one who walked away from it alone?
I left my home at seventeen, so young,
and paid my way with every dollar earned.
Who heard the quiet hope upon my tongue
each night I studied while the lamp still burned?
Why is there always one more class to find,
a room I cannot reach, a door that’s locked?
Why does the schedule blur inside my mind
while minutes slip away upon the clock?
Psychology, philosophy, two roads
I traveled far but never saw them end.
Three classes short. Who measures all the loads
a working heart must carry, lift, and tend?
I married, and I worked for forty-one
long years, and gave the best of what I had.
So why, when all those working days are done,
does one unfinished piece still make me sad?
Is this the reason that the dream returns?
Does painful truth play hide-and-seek at night,
and wait behind the library till it learns
I’m strong enough to face it in the light?
And if I face it, what else might I find?
That no diploma measures who I’ve grown?
That every lesson life has left behind
has taught me more than any class I’ve known?
The past is history, so let it be.
The future is a mystery, still unknown.
But now, this very moment, sets me free,
a gift we call the present, all our own.
So if a dream keeps calling you by name,
what hallway, what closed door, waits there for you?
Perhaps it doesn’t come to bring you shame,
but just to walk you home, whole, and new.

…

DCG

“If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”

— unknown 

This was the dream. I woke up on the San Diego State University campus, wearing a very plush San Diego State letterman jacket, which I have owned in the past. I was surrounded by people, many of whom were from where I worked. The people I had my career with showed up throughout the dream, even though many of them did not attend San Diego State.
We were sectioned off, almost as if we had been told to serve the campus community for some unknown reason. We were grouped together in square formations, almost like attendance lineups, or even in classrooms. I walked around and saw people from my job. I didn’t know why they were there too, because many of them did not go to the same school I did.

This dream, in some form, keeps coming back: me on the campus of San Diego State University.

Transcription
“Here is the twist. I was three classes shy of getting my degrees at San Diego State University. One in psychology and one in philosophy.”
Annotation: the two degrees would have been a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy.
A Revelation
I left home at 17 and paid my own way through San Diego State University. I studied toward a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy while working full-time.
I always meant to finish. But marriage and work took priority, and I spent 41 years with my employer. I ended up three classes short of both degrees, and not finishing those classes is my biggest regret.
My education has always mattered deeply to me. That may be why the same dreams keep coming back. I think they may be my mind returning to the one important thing I never finished the way I wanted to. This isn’t a failure. It shows how much I still value what I worked so hard for.