While You Were Asleep

I had a dream about Heaven last night.

Well, kind of. Rather, a fairly revealing dream about what goes on in the mind these days.

Your Common Access Card is a military id. We carry it everywhere, we can't do very much (like, eat, or use the front door) without it. So, naturally, it would make sense that after my friend and I die in the same accident, we scan into the afterlife using our id cards. Instant process - immediate identification. There's a sound of sliding metal, she goes in, and goes downstairs. I slide mine, same sliding metal sound, and when I open the door, the only way to go is upstairs.

(Please don't ask me why my friend went downstairs and I went up. I don't know for a fact that Waiting-For-Hell was down there; we never saw it.)

So, this isn't Heaven, because the end of the age hasn't come or something like that. This is where military cool their heels waiting for the next stage. And what do you have to offer the military by way of a divine reward in the meantime?

I came into a big, empty, carpeted room, actual drywall (nearly everything here is brick-and-tile), looked a whole lot like one of the rooms at church where my youth group used to meet. Dividing partition, unlocked door - the next room had pillows. And blankets. In such variety as you might achieve by hitting six different furniture chains in a day. No furniture, just cushions sprawled everywhere. Thick blankets, light blankets, colorful and soothing pastel, small, huge...and

I was talking to H yesterday, about our stress level, and adaptability. We'll have our day absolutely wrecked by sudden bad news, but within a few days, we're fine. Why? Because every day is two or three days long. There's so much going into it. If something happened more than three hours ago, it was probably yesterday; five, and it definitely was. If I spend five hours on the weekend with my friend, we spent the entire day together. I lost ten pounds in the last week from stress, but it's okay because I actually lost it over the course of three weeks. At this rate, I will be aging 18 years over the course of my enlistment.

And, we followed that up, what is every Sailor's fantasy? We ignore it most of the time - our time is limited, we rationalize; there are so many other things that we need to be doing. But, going on less than ten hours for three days, there is nothing so beautiful or delicious to dream about other than sleep. In your own rack. I actually miss my boot camp rack; it was the right size. I came to love that mattress, because no matter what had happened during the day, it was mine, and I could rest, even for three hours. Always came back to it.

So, yes. In the waiting period when military students die, they get to sleep. It's so, so wonderful. I curled up between two big squashy cushions, found a little throw pillow for my head, dragged this green fluffy blanketish thing over me, and slept for a week that night.

We also get to go out and learn more stuff, and now we get to learn without being exhausted and jamming information in all that time. We can explore the world, just that no one can see us; we can't change anything. Most of us actually love learning new things, or we wouldn't be here; we're just struggling with how hard and fast everything's coming (and the sheer lack of variety. If I had one music class going on at the same time as all this, I'd be flying.)

It's actually all kinds of cool. For the most part, we sort of hold to the time around when we died, because that's like the starting place every time we go out the door. That's another really cool thing - being able to just walk out the door, and walk back in again, because they know us. You're recognized by face, and you belong here, until things change and we get to go home. We don't know when that'll be, but we're learning so much now.

Good learning. Some of the guys are still practicing combat skills. I've climbed all over Yellowstone, and started haring off to Norway and climbing/sliding/skiing on glaciers, or the Swiss Alps. I've a friend who's tracking history - she'll read a huge section of the library, and then she'll go find the events and see what actually happened, how it played out, who was forgotten.

There's no one to say when it's time to sleep, or when it's time to wake. We wake up at sunrise, naturally, without alarms. My friend and I will stay up around this cool little lantern thing, just being girls without having to be strong and tough, laughing, and it's okay to actually touch somebody for longer than three seconds without someone thinking you're gay and tackling you to the floor and chucking you out.

Heaven's going to be so much better, but here, there's enough sleep, there are friends you can really be open with, you can play, you actually feel rested when you sleep, and you can go learn about anything you want, explore anything you want in the world. There's peace here.

Anyway, dreamed that last night. Absolutely beautiful, from where I'm standing.