I Had a Dream

Last night I dreamt that Dae and I were visiting my sister. He said his first sentence "No one knows me here."

The dream was present day, he was a smidge older, but not yet a year. We were sitting outside, him on my lap, maybe by a bonfire. I asked him something, can't remember exactly what, but he responded with words - big words. Lots of them. "No one knows me here," he said, as he looked right into my eyes.

I said "Do you want to leave?" And he said, "Yes."

It's crazy that I dreamt about his first sentence. The fact that my sister was a character in the story complicates matters.

I don't often spend a lot of time thinking about my dreams. There are two from junior high that I remember vividly. There's one from my first marriage I remember. There's a couple I have written about. There are a few more from my pregnancy - my baby having chin-length wavy red hair, my baby getting kidnapped, and hearing my baby laughing during an ultrasound.

I've never dreamt about my sister before, but now I have - TWO nights in a row. I find it hard to believe that doesn't mean SOMETHING. What though?

The meaning of his first sentence, "no one knows me" is laced with multiple possibilities. Is he saying I should allow him to know his aunt? Or just stating a fact? Or is he implying that he doesn't like it that no one put forth effort to know him?

I got the impression that we'd been sitting there a loooong time and he was saying, "Look, we tried. We came. We put ourselves out there and not one person spent a significant amount of time talking to us. These people are not worth our time."

My relationship with my sister is complicated, and yet described so simply - there isn't one. And most likely, both of us are too hurt and jaded to make the first step to change it.

It's unfortunate for our children, because my sister and I have managed to follow in the footsteps of every single member of our family (BOTH sides). A family member pisses us off or hurts our feelings and we write them off, never to speak to them again.

When my sister and I were close, I believed we could break that viscious cycle. I had a dream that we would be lifelong friends...