Vivid Dreams...

Do you ever have one of those nights where you have a dream that just wakes you out of your sleep? Last night I did... It's weird too - whenever I do, I look right at the clock to see what time it is. Time: 1:23am...

I always try too to sit and figure out what the dreams mean, and often think I should write them down, but never do because I am too exhausted.

This one though - I haven't had a dream about my mom that woke me up in a while...

I was somewhere in my dream - somewhere dark. In a basement filled with water, that was not wet, but present - like a cloud, but dark... Chloe was there, calling out to me. Riley was in my left arm... and I immediately found her and scooped her up in my right arm. I held them tight to me. Looked up and saw the concrete block wall, saw the texture and dark gray color so I knew it was a basement... and there was a stairway behind the wall that was open to us. Not much brighter, but as soon as I stepped up with my little ones in my arms, we instantly were on a landing with more stairs in front of us...

This new set of stairs were wood - a dark Mahogany tone or possibly Cherry. They were highly polished, and not too wide. The kids were getting heavy in my arms. Walls seemed to float around, creating a bit of structure to the stairs. I could see a landing up above me with cream carpet and tan walls. There was a banister to my left that had been there, but disappeared in sections, then completely - on both sides. I wasn't walking up the stairs, but somehow could look back and see more stairs behind me which disappeared back into the dark solid/liquid/cloud like nothingness...

I was trying to hold the kids, but my arms were getting heavier and heavier. I called to my mom who was in her room right under the stairs: Mom, can you give me a hand, they are starting to slip, and there is no banister here (anxiety setting in - fear of falling). I could hear her saying, I'll be right there honey, just hold on, don't look down. But then my mind went to immediately thinking - wait, she can't help, she is too sick. She can't even get out of her bed. Her arms are weaker than mine... And behind me came my sister Teren. She didn't say a word, just put her arms out for one of the kids. I don't know which one of them I gave her to hold because at that point, I realized, which is what woke me up - that my mom wasn't even in her bed awake and sick, calling out to me that she wanted to help and she would be right there... she couldn't be because she had died... And with that she was sucked away, a whirl of black smoke behind her and her bed was empty and I immediately woke up. Gone in a flash...

I wonder if I wake up panting, or not able to breathe. I wonder if being a bit uncomfortable in an anxiety kind of way (about the kids) I seem to be experiencing more frequently when awake is something that will last or is it something that will pass. Hormones again... will they ever be "normal" again?

I remember Dave teasing me after having Chloe about the impending doom feelings I had about all the wicked thunderstorms we were having and my fears of a tree (we have really big, really old - like ones that are 3x as tall as our house right behind our house) falling on our house and not being able to reach the kids...

So alas - the after pregnancy, after done breastfeeding, forever going to worry about your kids hormones are kicking in...

And about the dream - I think with Dave going away for work for the week, and me taking the kids to the beach for some of it with my sister Teren - it's pretty apparent why I was dreaming about taking care of the kids myself. There are all kinds of little things in there to pick apart (Basement is where my studio is. My mom had dark red, shiny wood in her last house. My right elbow - actually arm needs a good adjustment.).

It's just weird to wake yourself up to know that it was just a dream. That the kids are sleeping just fine. That I don't have to go through her passing again, because she is already gone. Somehow that knowing I don't have to go through that again comforts me. That I can settle into my life as it is now, not how it was before, snaps me out of it. I still cry though. Typing that she had died made the tears flow...

Oh the dreams...