These dreams...

I wake up in the morning. I am excited and nervous but I don’t remember why. Sitting up in bed I realize I am alone and that puzzles me some how. Looking towards the door I see huge white dress and realize… I am getting married today. But something is not right. There is no mother to help me into this dress (which I hate incidentally and wonder idly why I would have chosen something like it), no giggling girl friends to pass glasses of champagne and keep me company, in fact there is no one at all nearby.

I struggle into the cumbersome dress and manage to put my hair up and make-up on. I slip on some hideous white shoes and wander downstairs in this house which is both familiar and strange to me. After wandering around aimlessly for several minutes I have a panicked thought – maybe I am late to my wedding! I rush out of the house (cursing the dress the whole time) and into the church which is oddly enough within stumbling distance of that house.

I walk in from the back of what must be the longest aisle in church building history. At the very front of the room, near the alter I see one lone person, a man, my future husband. He seems like a stranger to me and yet I must know him. His back is to me so I can not see his face but I know he can tell when I have entered the room. We stand in silence for a moment while my brain feverishly tries to make out what is going on. Then he speaks. In a soft voice, almost a whisper, which I hear crystal clear despite the distance between us he says, “I just don’t love you enough to do this.”

*****

This dream has been haunting me, teasing its way into my subconscious on a fairly regular basis for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I wake up then, after he speaks, and sometimes I watch him walk away (exit stage left) through some unseen side doors. When I was younger I used to wait for the dream and hope that this time, if I concentrated closely enough, I would recognize the man and have some idea of what my future husband (or not, as the case may be) looked like. At the time of every break up I would use it to rationalize that the most recent ex must have been that guy and I was well rid of him now before it was too late.

But now? Now that things are on track and going well? Now that TheBoy and I are on the same page and making active future plans? Now this dream just scares the bejeezus out of me. Can a child’s dream follow you into adulthood and manifest itself in real life? What insecurities must I have to project this?