Life in an Elevator

Last night, I had a dream that bordered on a nightmare. It was an elevator dream.

But this one wasn’t the usual one about plummeting dozens of floors. This one featured everything else that could go wrong with trying to catch a lift.

Let me set the scene – I was in a hotel, and my room was on the 4^th floor. I had come down to the lobby to get some water (or something equally irrelevant). All I had to do was get back to the 4^th floor. Simple, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Muahahahahaa…

Firstly, I couldn’t find where the lifts were located. They were camouflaged and flush against the wall, and I had to look very carefully for slight seams in the wall and almost invisible call buttons. All good, I eventually found the sneaky little suckers. I hit the up arrow and waited.

But because the lifts were camouflaged, a bunch of people came and stood in front of the doors, so when it opened, despite me asking nicely for people to move, I couldn’t get through the crowd, and missed the lift. Dammit. I searched to find the hidden buttons again, and waited.

And waited. And waited some more. The wait felt like it was 18 minutes of hell. Such a waste of time, exacerbated by the fact I should have caught the last ride! I curse those people under my breath.

Finally, PING! Lift arrives, I get in. Just gotta find the buttons on the inside and hit ‘4’. Easy, right?

WRONG. I get in and the buttons are camouflaged too, but I’m getting better at this deception, so while find it reasonably quickly, I’m not quick enough, and the lift has already shot past the fourth floor. I have to wait until we go up, then come back down. The doors (of course) open on the lobby level again, having decided to completely ignore my request for ‘4 please’.

I start again. And because this is dreamland, the lobby looks completely different, and I’m trying to find the hidden lifts for another few minutes. As I wander unfamiliar halls, I feel my impatience growing.

Try again.

Find the lift, press the button, wait. Get in, press 4. I’m sharing this lift with a couple, and they want floor 2. The doors open, and they get out, and for some reason, I get out too, realising only too late, it’s not my floor! The doors had closed, and I’m stuck on level 2 having to wait another eternity to try again. I’m getting REALLY frustrated by this nonsense. It shouldn’t be this hard!

It’s ok – third time’s the charm, right? Deep breath. I got this. 

The same thing literally happens, except when my ride companions get out, I don’t realise it IS Level 4, and I completely miss my chance! It was RIGHT THERE. I’m gutted. RIGHT THERE. I WAS SO CLOSE!

Try again.

Find the lift, press the button, wait. I’m repeating in my head like a mantra I can’t forget – “Level 4. Level 4. Level 4. I will get off at Level 4.”

PING. I get in. Can’t see the buttons anymore. DAFUQ!?!?! I’m running my hands along the sleek, cold stainless-steel wall, trying to feel the slightest ridge that might indicate the numbers to press. FOUND IT! YESSS!! Except there’s no ‘4’.

I’m feeling so defeated, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I feel like the butt of a cosmic joke, and I’m exasperated. Someone is suddenly in the lift with me and we’re shooting skywards at a million miles an hour. At least we’re not plummeting.

It’s rattling and shaking and it’s scary. I don’t like this familiar feeling. But I just brace myself and wait it out. I remember whispering to myself, “we’re gonna get there, just breathe”, and very intentionally inhaling slowly.

I can’t remember how the dream ended. I’d like to think I eventually got back to my room, but odds are I probably woke up before that. So much for resolution!

As I drank my morning coffee, I thought about that dream. How life is like trying to catch an elevator.

We want to go somewhere, and technically, it should be simple. We know what to do in theory. Press the button, wait, and get out when the right signs appear.

But much like my dream, life isn’t always like that. It may be simple in theory, but it’s often far from easy.

There are hidden doors, and a lot of time spent waiting, feeling frustrated that nothing is happening. People can get in our way and block us, and other times we follow them by mistake, and end up in the wrong place. Sometimes we get taken to unfamiliar locations we had no intention of finding ourselves in, and sometimes we find ourselves back where we started. And it’s all a lot harder than what we’re taught in school. Even if we’ve read all of the books about elevators and understand their mechanics (like how one ping usually means going up, and two pings means going down), it still doesn’t really prepare you for actually experiencing what happens when the pings malfunction. And sometimes, all you feel you can do is just brace yourself and wait it out when things get out of hand. Throw yourself to the mercy of the elevator.

I know my dream was valuable information about surrender, patience, perseverance, and not being veered off my own path by others (and a bunch of other things my subconscious was trying to tell me).

It reflected that even though we can have read all the theory about personal development and healing trauma, none of it works until we embody it; until we DO it, LIVE it, and BE it. And that until we can emotionally handle being in an out-of-control elevator (learning to hold our trauma responses in a regulated way), the ride is going to be turbulent.

I have been growing my emotional capacity to handle the turbulence for some time now. And I’ll continue to, because life is an evolution. I get to show others how to as well, and guide them through their own crazy elevator rides.

We may never reach our floor, but we can certainly learn to appreciate the ride. We can learn to love, and not fear… the ping!