One of my biggest recurring dreams is that my teeth are falling out. I'm somewhere in my dream, and I feel one of them come loose and fall out. I rush into a bathroom and try desperately to jam it back in, but the others are loose and start jiggling their way out as well. I think I will go to the dentist and get them looked at...but there's such tremendous sadness.

Teeth are falling out. Irreversible. Was I ignoring their well-being and my hygeine? Was it that toothache that I had, but didn't visit the dentist about?

Aging. Irreversible. Things change, some for the worse.

They say that dreams about teeth falling out signify a fear of death, a fear of aging. Certainly, I'm not anxious to do either. But until your mind has seen that desperate vision of yourself, trying to push rotted teeth back into your shriveled gums, and just hope they stick this time...don't be so quick to shrug it off.

I was convinced, in high school, that the world as it was known would end near 1999. That I would graduate only to see a massive war or nuclear attack, and I would wander the countryside with sword and guitar. The Traveler. Maybe emerge into some post-apocalyptic leader.

When I first got an office - a relatively huge, windowed, beautifully furnished office - I was to inherit it only after I returned from South America. And in the back of my head, I was fairly certain that I would become victim to a plane crash, or taken hostage, or perhaps just killed in the jungles of Colombia. Here I am, facing a vacation and my first real office, and all I can think about is ways that it will just never happen.

At work, I have changed jobs about every 2 years. Either a big promotion, or a move to the home office - something like that. I have been at my current job almost 2.5 years now, and it's dragging on me. Previously I could leave jobs, right when too much responsibility was handed out, or my opinions had been ignored for a while, or management had repeatedly made terrible decisions. Oftimes I would exit shortly before a key deadline, allowing me the opportunity to simultaneously escape from, while punishing my superiors with, that failure. It always felt justified. Sure, I mismanaged my time, and failed to engage the task whole-heartedly (usually because I was doing 100 other things). But signing up for that task, not giving proper support, and then not giving any oversight or opportunities for feedback and discussion were their fault.

And they were punished for it. I wasn't. I got out, got a new job at a higher salary, and got to walk out in a blaze of glory (or, in some cases, to applause).

Now, the chance to do the same thing. Abandon ship right before it hits the iceberg. But it's a bad economy, and now I have two mortgages, plans to visit all over the world this year, and all kinds of personal goals with music and recording. Money is the lubricant to reach some of those goals. And while I yearn to say shove it and head off to a short-term consulting gig, I am tempered by the fears - the unknown, the bad market, having no degree, etc. I'm pretty sure I could succeed - even improve my income, and resumé simultaneously - but the chance that I would be less happy or fail completely looms too large. And I would miss the windows in my office.

Barely 29, and I'm already conforming so much that I'm scared to buck the system hard anymore. God, 16 year old me would be so disappointed.

But then again, he was looking forward to this country going to shit. And not just via Tea-Baggery.