Monday, April 23, 2012

The Up-side to Nightmares

The other night, I dreamed that Jim was courting me, again. I was overcome with love for him (as I am in real life, of course) and could hardly wait to marry him. Problem was, he'd been married to his current wife for ten years, and they had three children together. He loved his wife and children, he insisted, and would never leave them. If I were willing to accept them (as they were willing to accept me), we could make it work.

This is what I get for watching Sister Wives. But anyway.

In my dream, I was as conflicted and distraught as I've ever been, in real life. I could stand neither the thought of being away from Jim nor the idea of sharing him with his wife and family.

Imagine my relief when I woke up and realized I'd been dreaming! When I told Jim about my dream, he laughed and said: "I can't even keep up with the wife I have! You don't have anything to worry about!"

Even so, I've been stuck to him like glue for days, now. I feel renewed in my excitement that he's my husband: that it's a permanent deal, that I don't have to share him with anyone other than our rotten  little kids.

The whole situation reminds me of one just after Clementine's birth. For reasons I'll never understand, Jim's co-worker had felt the need to tell Jim: after watching a baby exit his wife's body, he never again wanted to engage in intimate behavior with her. (Supposedly, his repulsion--and nothing else--led to their divorce.) For another set of reasons I'll never understand, Jim had felt the need to share this conversation with me.

Thus, my next dream (in the hospital, as the mother of our newborn daughter) involved Jim's telling me: having seen me birth a baby, he didn't want me, anymore. When I woke up and realized I'd been dreaming, I got up and tried to insert my sore and swollen body into the single bed in which he was sleeping, near me.

I was stuck to him like glue for months, afterward.

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