Borrowing Trouble From the Future (Again)

Jean didn’t plan on writing about dreams, grief, or the strange places the mind wanders at night. But then she woke up crying—something she hadn’t done in months—and the moment insisted on being examined. She’d cried at the doctor’s office the day before, too, which was even more unusual. Jean is not a woman who cries easily, not even when life has handed her the kind of losses that would buckle most people. But something about that dream, and the day that came before it, tugged at her in a way she couldn’t ignore. So she followed the thread, the way she always does, to see where it led…. AI

I woke up crying. And yesterday I cried at the doctor’s office. What’s going on with me? Waking up with tears in my eyes from a dream has happened before, but crying at a doctor’s office? That hasn't happened since 1968 when a doctor lectured twenty-six year old me about the evils of having premarital sex. And trust me, I’ve had plenty of reasons to turn on the waterworks when doctors delivered bad news about my husband. I didn’t even cry after I had to make the decision to pull the plug on his life support, and ten minutes later he died. I saved those tears for when I got home.

The dream-tears that woke me featured my mom hanging clothes on the line at our family cottage, my dad tinkering with something nearby, and my husband driving his yellow Chevy Cutlass convertible. I was walking home from a sleep lab in a far off city and I woke up when Don pulled up alongside me and said, “Why didn’t you call? I would have picked you up.” Since I’ve been using my BiPAP machine, I haven’t remembered many dreams, but this one was an exception. I can’t wait for my follow-up appointment with the sleep doctor to ask if not recalling dreams is normal when getting treated for Central Sleep Apnea.

I used to keep a dream journal and spent time analyzing my dreams each morning. The long walk from a sleep lab wasn’t hard to figure out. I had my first appointment with the sleep doctor last December, and it took until a month ago to finally get a BiPAP machine because his final diagnosis didn't come until after he'd sent me to three additional specialists plus an overnight stay at the sleep lab. Getting all those appointments scheduled took time. I had to see an ears, nose and throat doctor, a gastroenterologist, a urogynecologist, the sleep lab technician and last but not least, I had to go in for an out patient surgery plus go to the durable medical supplies place to get fitted for a mask. 

My mom hanging clothes in my dream was no doubt symbolic of airing my “dirty laundry” at the doctor’s office—the thing that made me cry. I had asked my primary doctor’s Nurse Practitioner if I was a candidate for one of the new weight-loss drugs on the market, and she listened—actually listened—to my history with weight gain. Unlike my primary, who told me several months ago to “just move more.” She said severe sleep apnea is one of the qualifying factors for the weight-loss shots. She ordered a bunch of blood work and will submit the request for Medicare approval. (Fingers crossed.) I’m not sure how long that will take, but that’s what made me cry. Not the full-blown ugly cry of a toddler whose candy was snatched by the family dog, but she could tell I was trying to hold back tears. I would have managed it, too, if she hadn’t turned around as she was leaving to ask, “Do you need a hug?” I thanked her for listening while wiping tears from my cheeks.

When Don drove up alongside me in the dream—now that has a scary interpretation. Was it a death wish? Just hop in the car and go to the Great Unknown? Or a comforting thought that I won’t be alone when I do die? In the back of my mind, the predictions on the insurance actuarial table still weigh heavy: that my time in Independent Living will be up by October, when I’ll be moved to Assisted Living. Being a two-person lift in a place like that would be fertile inspiration for a horror movie plot. And that thought is what my mother used to call “borrowing trouble from the future.” I may not have mastered putting on compression stockings, but I am a master at borrowing trouble and trying to prevent it from happening. She may have called it borrowing trouble but I call it long-range planning. Tomato, tomatoes.

According to the online Dream Dictionary, “Dreaming of the dead can be both rewarding and terrifying depending on the context of the dream. There seems to be a fine line between actual contact or repressed memories or emotions that have come back to pay you a visit...” Are they coming for me? That was my first question. My second thought was that my dream was expressing my anxiety over running out of quality time. (Most likely the best explanation.) But my third thought—the Little Miss Mary Sunshine version—put a smile on my face: If I had hopped in Don's convertible, I would have been able to tell Mom that I finally learned to enjoy tea as much as she did. I probably wouldn’t tell her I make it the English way, with cream in the cup before pouring in the properly steeped tea. She drank it straight.

Our brains, especially during sleep, are mysterious places. They spin stories vivid enough to feel like time travel, dredge up fragmented memories we thought were long settled, and nudge us toward truths we’ve been avoiding. They can scare us or thrill us to death—a figure of speech. And maybe that’s the real purpose of a dreams like this one: they are a reminder that even in the strangest corners of the mind, something is still trying to move us forward. ©

See you next Wednesday! 

If you have fifteen minutes for something upbeat, inspiring and fun, watch this video of Kermit the Frog at the University of Maryland giving their commencement speech. Several Fox News reporters were bashing it but Facebook was showing this video along with Trump's commencement speech video at West Point where he talked about getting bored with trophy wives and owning big yachts. Kermit's speech ended with the entire audience singing the Rainbow Connection.