In Over My Head

A Dream

I was a baby who always had a worried look. My mother told me that she would often say "Don't worry! Everything is going to be alright!" I guess it's just my nature...

I want to tell you about my dream. The only dream that ever mattered. I don't think I've told anyone about it before....maybe my husband at one of those moments when uncomfortable, private truths are revealed. I'm not sure. What I do know is that my dream has haunted me for close to fifty years.

I was five or six when I had it. I remember waking up, instantly wide-eyed and frightened. I didn't understand what it meant, but it felt important, essential that I remember it. The dream keeps coming back to me and I think I may understand it now, but I'm going to let you come to your own conclusions.

I'm uncomfortable telling this and perhaps someone reading who comes to an interpretation similar to mine will be offended. Please, understand, this is the honest recollection of the dream of an innocent five or six year old.

It was brief. I went into a building - maybe a barn. It was cool and the light was dim. There may have been tiles on a wall. I know there was light coming from above, perhaps windows set up at the roofline. I was suddenly aware of poisonous air and my only thought was to cover the mouth of a small child, to try to save the child. That's it. Nothing else.

I might have let go of the dream twenty or thirty years ago, but when I became an adult it suddenly struck me how odd it was for a five year old to dream of being an adult and, not only that, but to have a dream in which ones own safety wasn't as important as another person's.

I'm glad I've finally told someone. I want to forget it now.

posted by Susan @ 2:17 PM