Friday, September 12, 2008

Dream...

When I woke up this morning from my dream, I was feeling anxious and freaked out, and happy and sad, and confused. Usually when I dream about my boyfriend, that's the aftermath. Now, my lovely boyfriend occasionally reads this blog, so baby, DO NOT TAKE THIS DREAM LITERALLY. Or do, however you want to look at it. The ending seems to be quite a predictable you, so you might like that. Who knows. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here it is, or what I can remember 9hrs after the fact:

My boyfriend and I are living in the same crummy apartment, but it's slightly more run down and smaller. In my dream, we know the previous tenant, and she is about our age, attractive, but totally flaky. My boyfriend hates her because she has caused a lot of the ongoing physical problems with the apartment that we are paying for, and she continues to drop by. I guess her and I are friends. Or rather, I feel bad for her so I let her come by. I never say her name in the dream, so I don't know what it is for this retelling.

Now, on this particular day, my boyfriend and I are exchanging our usual banter, and somehow (as it often does), marriage comes up. I usually tease him about us getting married, but it's always just teasing. Him and I are so not marriage people, and we know that it will never happen. However, in my dream, the teasing turns serious. He, rather nonchalantly, tells me that he will ask me to marry him, later tonight actually. I start to panic and freak out on him. He is totally serious, and I am almost to the point of tears because I know what my answer will be and I'm scared that I'll hurt him and hurt us. He can't stop smiling and I finally ask him, with tears in my eyes, "what if I say no?" He just smiles and hugs me and starts to get ready for work.

After he leaves for work, the former tenant stops by with her baby. The baby must be about 12 months old, maybe a little younger. She begs me if she can leave him here so that she can go on a job interview, all the while giving me some sob story. Before I can really say yes or no, she sort of just pushes him on me; telling me that she left his baby food in "his cupboard" and his diapers are in the diaper bag. She's out the door and on the interview (one that she ends up drinking at). I'm overcome with the feeling that she has abandoned her baby for good. I rush over to the baby's cupboard, one that she herself put up when she lived here. It's a "baby-sized" cupboard, one that fits little jars of baby food perfectly in. I open it and to my relief, only see enough baby food for the day. I know if she were to leave him with me for good; she would have brought every jar of baby food she had left in her house.

Somehow, in between the time where she left and the time my boyfriend got home from work, I had invited over a group of my old friends from Texas. In my dream, we all live in the same town again, so their coming over isn't anything special. I'm rushing around taking care of the baby and entertaining my guests while trying to find the right opportunity to tell them that my boyfriend will ask me to marry him in a few hours. That I may or may not be engaged later tonight. I need some perspective. I need help and input. I need to figure this out.

Before I can say anything, he comes home. I tentatively tell him that former tenant was over and left her baby with me to watch; and that I didn't know when she would be back. I wait for him to get mad, but he doesn't mind. He seems happy. Actually, he seems pretty damn giddy. I've never seen him like that and I know that it's because of the anticipation of popping the question. I can sense that....feeling...that, I just know this is right feeling coming from him and it freaks me out because I don't think committing to him will be right. I don't think I can go through with it. I'm a bundle of nervous energy and nausea at this point.

The dream fast forwards. The guests have left (without me telling them what the night will bring) and former tenant has come and gone, baby in tow. My boyfriend and I are starting to get into the bedtime routine. In my head a great struggle is going on. Do I say yes? Do I say no? Can I say yes? Or should I say no? I settle on saying no, then I decide that I'm going to say yes. Then no, then yes. I wonder if I can say yes then break if off later. I wonder a lot of things.

And then....nothing. Nothing happens. We go to bed. He never asks me. In the morning he gets ready for work like nothing happened. Even his mood is back to normal, no giddiness shown. I know him telling me he was going to ask the big question was not a joke, so I don't know whether to be relieved or hurt now. I'm nothing, if not confused.

That's where the dream ends.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love having neighmares, cuz when I wake up, I am happy to have an okay life...

on the other hand, if I have a wonderful dream, I am depressed when I wake up ~