One of the nice upsides to fixing my insomnia is that I’m suddenly dreaming again. I had forgotten how weird they could get, so of course, I have to share one of them with you! Hang in there for the plot twist.
The other night I dreamed that I met a girl and her young daughter at my book signing. I’ve never done a book signing, but there she was. She was 24. This is important information, because she invited me to her home for dinner. In real life, I don’t believe something like this could ever happen even if I became so rich that I wore pants made up of $100 bills sewn together. Also, my oldest daughter is 26 years old, which means I don’t see twenty-somethings in a romantic light, but this dream was not interested in my sense of propriety.
At any rate, in my dream, 24-year-old girls invite old dudes home for dinner where I met her three, beautiful sisters and their elegant mother. However, I was smitten only with the 24-year-old, who was the loveliest of all. Her 4-year-old daughter loved me. Her mother, who was the same age as I am, loved me. (Yes, the dream emphasized that she was 51-years-old.) All that mattered, it seems, was that I loved this girl, and she loved me. So it was decided over bread rolls that we would marry.
I knelt before her and her mother and produced a grass ring with an opal set in it to place on her finger. We were all so happy. Somehow, my daughter Joy (who lives in Ireland), Cathryn, Lorelai, and the Brownie all flew in to meet us at dinner. They were wondering why I asked them there, then they saw the girl and simply knew. Nobody was upset at the vast age difference. Nobody was creeped out by the fact this girl was younger than my oldest daughter. The young 4-year-old, realizing her mother was marrying me, exclaimed, “I get a new daddy?!” and leapt into my arms. Everybody was happy, except the girl’s sisters, who were jealous of my daughters’ beauty.
Then I got a phone call. A sink hole had appeared at my fiancé’s grandfather’s home, revealing the remains of children in his backyard. The family was a bit upset over the news. Suddenly, I was there in his yard, looking at the skeletal remains poking out from the disturbed earth. The sidewalk had been swallowed up, as well as several cars. The childrens’ little hands and tattered clothes filled me with sadness. At this point, the dream broke down. I was lucid enough to realize that this dream was bath salt crazy. I immediately woke up.
I laid there sleepy and groggy from the dream, disorientated because I hadn’t adjusted to reality yet. For a moment I was put out that my fiancé & I had never kissed. Then, as I became more and more awake, I started to realize that we agreed to marry without knowing each other. Without dating. In fact, there was no romance at all! Also, why did I know everybody’s age, even her sisters? And why did I get the phone call about the grandfather? None of the dream made any sense. At that point, I was awake and thoroughly bemused. Let’s hope my first date after my divorce goes a bit better than that dinner did.
~Dˢ
Coping Strategies: Insomnia is a wonderful lifestyle unless you have to wake up in the morning. Truth be told, I don’t function well with under five hours of sleep. When my sleep gets out of wack, it is because I have forgotten that sleep is important. I need to frame sleep as a benefit. When you are used to working through the night, however, that’s a hard sell. I find it helpful to think of the upsides sleep gives me. Stamina, health, and better focus are my top three, but wacky dreams is a nice incentive as well.
