I’m not sleeping well these days, and from what my Facebook friends post, I’m not the only one.
I did well the first week we were doing the social distance/stay home thing. I slept all night and soundly, and woke refreshed every morning at 5 a.m. And every dream I had that first week was beautiful, empowering, or both.
But since I’ve been sequestered, it’s changed. I hadn’t slept all night for a week. Last night, I went to bed at midnight, woke at 1 a.m., again at 2 a.m., and finally got up at 6:30.
I stayed up because that last time I woke from a dream so troubling that I was afraid to go back to sleep.
In my dream, Mars and I were talking in the kitchen of our house (not this house) when I glanced into the family room behind him, and saw it was in flames.
I mean, in flames. The far wall was completely engulfed, and the curtains on a side wall were also burning.
“Fire!” I pointed and turned to grab the fire extinguisher from under the kitchen sink.
Mars stopped me. “We have to get out. Now.”
“Get out? What do you mean?” I jerked away from him and opened the cabinet door. “We need to put it out.”
“No.” He grabbed my arm. “We need to leave. I’ll go upstairs and get Girly Girl. You look for The Animator.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but then I shut it. I’m the doom-and-gloom sayer in our relationship, and Mars is the optimistic one. If he thinks it’s too late to save our house, it’s too late.
He was already halfway up the stairs. I turned the other direction to search the ground floor rooms.
I couldn’t find The Animator. I was about to head up the stairs behind Mars when he called from the front door. “I’ve got them both. Get out of here!”
I grabbed my purse and ran.
It was raining outside, and the remaining snowpack was getting slushy. I opened my purse, to make sure my ID and cards were OK, and saw that the lining of my purse was smoldering. I dumped the contents into the slush to keep them from burning and filled my purse with snow.
Then we turned and watched our house burn to the ground with everything we owned other than the cold, soggy contents of my purse.
I don’t need a psychic to interpret this one for me. Early in our marriage, Mars told me a house in dreams represents one’s life, and whether or not that is generally true, it has become a truth for me. Obviously I am afraid our neat, orderly, peaceful life is about to burn down.
Heck, I’m afraid our entire society is at risk of total destruction.
But you know what I find most interesting? That I didn’t immediately recognize it as a “Run! Now!” kind of emergency. Mars had to tell me.
I thought it was a small thing, the kind of minor fire where you grab a skillet lid or box of baking soda, smother it, and finish cooking dinner.
Even though it was so obviously past that point when we saw it.