When I woke up Monday, I was tired but amused with my dream of Bad Mommas and the Salty Blue Lagoon. The songs my dream-brain made up made me laugh.
Tuesday’s midnight musing? Subterranean Speed-Sailing: whooshing through underground aquaducts in a glorified disco bouncy house, at speeds topping 3,000mph. When I woke up, my daughter and I laughed and chattered about the name and speculated how that travel method might work.
Well, last night’s dream ended in a tornado.
I used to have tornado dreams all the time. Even in this dream, my reaction was, “Oh, come on…” and an eye roll as I watched everything I was working on blow away. “NICE IRONY!” I shouted at the sky. It just swallowed my words as I sought shelter in a church the storm was trying to destroy. Tornado dreams are my mind’s way of reminding me that some things are not in my control. I’m used to that.
But it was the rest of the dream’s content that left me upset this morning: a guy I’d been stuck on for way too long finally realized he didn’t want to let me go, and we were well on our way to Happily Ever After. Until the tornado reminded me it was fake.
So my morning reactions to dream topics, in summary, have been like this:
Bad Mommas, the Musical: “What? Haha!”
Subterranean Speed Sailing: “Well now there’s a hilarious half-baked idea!”
Actual Love: “Stop it, brain, that isn’t funny.”
The worst dreams are the ones where you wake up sad because you wanted them to be true.
Timeboxing is a no-go so far this morning, but I am using it as a chance to practice self compassion. That tends to go better when I recognize what I share with so many others out there.
So to anyone who reminds themselves how nice it is to be single and free, and how life is better now, that friendship is love too . . . but still wonders what it’s like to be loved back . . . I see you. It’s okay to feel that way. It’s okay to sing out the glory of singleness and it’s okay to hear the counter melody, too.
The tornado=powerlessness part of my dream was “right” … I can’t control what someone else thinks or feels about me. He probably can’t control what he feels about me, either. I certainly know I don’t seem to have much control over my feelings about him. Day-brain is definitely ready to be over it. Night-brain, not so much, apparently.
But what can I do? Just gotta keep row, row, rowing through life. Or perhaps speed sailing is the way to go.
And with that: back to my timeboxing efforts.
Legend of Velda 