Sad Dreaming

The following is another recent dream I had - including some additional commentary.

Dream 12/27/11

I was working in my home office on a project for my job. My computer and my husband, Jesse’s, computer were set up in an L formation leaving us little room to both sit at our desks. This wasn’t a problem at the moment as my husband was at his work office. I had recently excelled at work and was heading towards an executive role by working harder and smarter and this allowed me to work at home from time to time. I had some rather highly technical information up on my large computer monitor and some other equipment stationed behind the monitor on another table. I moved around the monitor and was working with this other equipment when Jesse came home from work. He sat at his desk and brought something up on his computer and on mine while he dialed his phone. I came back around to the front of my computer, and was crouched down underneath the desk tinkering with some cords. I was so engrossed in what I was doing that it took me a minute to realize Jesse was on the phone with the airlines. When I looked up at my computer screen I noticed that he had an airline website pulled up.

I never asked him about it as I needed to leave and he was still on the phone, but I was under the impression that he had to travel for business that evening. It struck me as odd since he never travels for his job and he hadn’t talked to me before making plans to leave.

I rushed out of the house and walked a few blocks to my bus stop as I needed to get into the office. It started to rain so I stepped inside the bus stop shelter while waiting for the bus. But before the bus arrived Jesse pulled up in a pick-up truck with an assistant. I instantly knew something was wrong and wouldn’t let him speak. He was parked askew in the street while both he and the assistant walked towards me in the pouring rain. I was standing in the middle of the street, soaking wet, and heading back towards our home.

Jesse tried to explain that he was leaving for a job opportunity and he was taking our daughter, Riley, with him. I screamed. I cried. I told him there was no way he was taking my child away from me. I was distraught and confused. How could I not know that my husband wanted to leave me? How could I live without him and my daughter? I headed home knowing that I needed to get to a safe place and find my child.

At home Jesse no longer looked like the Jesse I knew with his clean shaven head. He had a chin length, sandy colored, bob haircut and was concerned about having to change that for this new job opportunity. Apparently, he would have to keep his hair cut short and his face shaved clean. He reminded me more of an old boyfriend who would have never agreed to cut his hair for anyone else (except when he finally got lice –otherwise he was “against the establishment!”). Jesse finally shared that he was moving to Spain which surprised me even more. He was pretty quiet, but did express some of his concerns of moving to another country with his daughter. I asked him multiple questions such as “why wouldn’t you talk to me about our relationship if you weren’t happy?” and “why would you think I would let you take Riley away from me… and so far away?” He didn’t appear too willing to talk or work on our relationship. He seemed determined to go and with that I was resolved to do everything I could to keep Riley with me even if he wasn’t willing to work on our relationship.

I awoke from the dream saddened to think that my family could be torn apart and even sadder when I rolled over and Jesse wasn’t there. Of course, my rational, awake side kicked in and I remembered Jesse getting out of bed earlier unable to sleep in our overheated room (I was also uncomfortable). I reminded myself that he wasn’t going anywhere and that Riley was just across the hall… and then I rolled over and went back to sleep.

But the story doesn’t end there. I woke up, got ready for work and rushed out to catch the bus. I didn’t have time to tell Jesse that I had a terrible dream, but I wanted to tell him this one. I wrote down my dream when I had time at work and planned to email it to him, but before I could do so he sent me this text:

Lmao. Riley’s first Spanish word was ‘arriba’ and it was hilarious.

Seriously!? Maybe that wasn’t a dream I had after all. How could he tease me with this when I was still a little sensitive from the dream? Granted, he wasn't aware that I had this dream, but still! At lunchtime I finally emailed him the dream and sent him a text that he should go check his email to read about my dream. Hours went by and I didn’t hear any response so I sent the following text:

Because you haven’t responded to my email I can only assume you took Riley to Spain.

And 26 minutes later he responded with:

Arriba!!! Haven’t checked it yet. Just got home.

Enough with the ‘arriba’ buddy. This is sensitive stuff we’re talking about. By the time I got home 45 minutes later Jesse had finally read the dream and was thoughtful enough to give me an extra big hug and reassure me that he wasn’t going anywhere.

That night I went to bed peacefully next to my husband and didn’t have a single dream that I remembered. But when I woke in the morning I found a pick-up that I’d never seen before parked right in front of our house…