Dreams

Lately, I have been experiencing some of the strangest dreams, and I can only hope they stop soon. I have a hard enough time sleeping without some of the odd thoughts haunting me at night. If I'm lucky enough to sneak a nap in during the afternoon, they are almost always riddled with horrible nightmares, and yesterday was no exception.

My back and legs have been hurting so bad lately, even Tylenol brings me no relief, so when I found a comfortable spot in bed yesterday afternoon, I wasn't moving unless the house was burning down, and even then it would have been iffy. I managed to catch about 20 minutes of sleep, and had one of the strangest dreams ever. Dustin, the girls, and I were going to eat dinner at an old family friend's house, and on the way there, my front teeth were grinding together. I pulled down the visor to take a peek, and to my horror my front teeth were huge, about 2 inches long, and curled inward. They were so big and disgusting, I could hardly look at them, and when I did, the unimaginable happened. They were rotten at the gums and falling out, and as I reached up to touch them, two of them fell out in my hands. I promised Dustin I would call the dentist first thing in the morning, but I had no idea how I was going to eat and disguise this disaster in my mouth. I woke up before I even got out of the car in my dream, but the images haven't left my mind since. Maybe that's part of what prompted my dream from last night.

My mom was beautiful, in my opinion, and not a soul will ever be able to convince me otherwise. The only problem, her teeth. I remember her front teeth being long, and sticking out enough that when she closed her mouth and smiled you could see them a tiny bit. I know she refused to go to the dentist, and to me that was just the way it was, and it never bothered me a bit. I remember at the very end, when my mom was extremely sick and in the hospital for the last time, that a few of them fell out. Maybe that's why I had that dream yesterday afternoon, I've been thinking about her a lot lately, and those thoughts continued into my dream last night. It was unusual and strange, and I'm still boggled by what it means. It started off with Dustin and I on a plane that was rocking back and forth in the middle of a corn field. The inside felt more like a bus or the light rail, people were standing up and the seats were all along the walls instead of in rows. I overheard someone say we were stranded in Nebraska, and I knew that just couldn't be right. Somehow, we got moving again and when I looked out the window, I was in front of my old childhood home moving in slow motion, and my mom was pulling into the driveway. She was driving my first car, the blue '92 Toyota Corolla my dad bought for her after the station wagon bit the dust. I saw her pulling in and was beyond thrilled, she'd get to meet Dustin and I'd get to see her. I don't know where she had been, it seemed like she was just gone for a while, and I practically shoved Dustin out the door. Somehow, he managed to be sitting at the kitchen table when I finally made it through the door. In the garage, I stopped my mom, and looked at her face, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Her skin was perfect, her hair and makeup were done, and her teeth were fixed, perfectly straight and white. I touched her cheek and told her how gorgeous she was, and she just looked at me and turned away, like she was ashamed. In the house I wanted to fill her in on my life since her, I told her I was pregnant with our 3rd child, and this was the man I love, the man I will spend my life with. She told him as long as he was a good eater, and he took care of me, she knew I'd be fine.

In my mind then, I knew she'd never meet Dustin, or my children, but I was OK with that. I never got to ask her any questions, or even hear her voice, but something felt exact. It was like we time traveled back for a moment, I'm not sure where she came from, but the moment was indescribable. It didn't even look like her, in my dream, but it was her, I know it. Maybe this is a step toward closure, a step in the right direction. A small step for man-kind, but a big step for me.