A meaningful dream

Last night I dreamed I was in a city (New York? Chicago? Boston?) trying to hail a taxi. It was raining, and none of the taxis were stopping, so I turned around and started walking down the street toward someplace that was dry. As I was walking, a woman roughly my age put her umbrella over my head and asked me if I knew any good restaurants. Behind her were her friends; one was smiling and laughing and telling stories, the other seemed very shy.

I led them past a super fancy Japanese restaurant. "I heard it's really nice, but it's also really expensive so I won't recommend it to you," I said. The girl with the umbrella laughed and said, "Now here's a girl who knows my style!"

I finally led them to a relatively nice, relatively inexpensive restaurant and was invited to join them. I sat between the umbrella girl and the shy girl. The shy girl didn't order any food.

"Don't worry," said the umbrella girl to the shy girl, "we'll find some place to get some chocolate after this." The shy girl smiled sweetly. I suddenly remembered something. "I know a nice chocolate cafe around here," I said. The part of me that knew I was dreaming wondered if I was in the right city, or if the chocolate cafe was just a memory of some other city I'd lived in.

I'm not sure why this rainy, random girls night out with strangers struck me so much, but it did. Previously, my dream was filled with people from every different era of my life (who seemed to all know each other, and we all lived in this imaginary city that seemed to be a composite of every city I've ever stepped foot in.) Everything had been familiar, everyone was someone I knew, and I was very happy to be in the company of all of these people... and then I was alone and the three girl strangers showed up and I seemed to accept it as part of my life.

"Do you know what the meaning of life is?" The shy girl asked after a while. The umbrella girl laughed and said, "Don't mind her, she's in a phase where she has to figure everything out." But I smiled and told the umbrella girl it was fine, and I turned back to the shy one. "I have no idea, but here's how I see it: every day should be enjoyable. If you don't have anything to do that day, go out and do something awesome. Spend time with people whose company you enjoy, and forge meaningful connections with as many people as you can." The laughing girl let out a beautiful laugh, the umbrella girl grinned at me, and the shy girl gave me a shy smile.

And then I woke up.