Dream Journal

I've been having some odd dreams lately. A few of them have recurring themes while others are just plain strange. I figured it's probably time to start writing them down so I remember later, in case they come up again.


In the recurring theme category: I lose my job.

I've had dreams with this theme at least 3 times now. The details aren't always the same, in fact, I don't even remember most details, I just remember how angry and frightened it made me feel.

In one, I got fired because I gave too much information to a contractor who's working for my company, but who has not signed any confidentiality agreement, and to whom I have not been given permission to give full disclosure. That one was weird because the reason for my firing had absolutely nothing to do with my job performance. I don't remember the details of the others. All of them have freaked me out substantially, even though I'm in no real danger of losing my job.


Non-recurring, but just plain strange: I got arrested for driving 38 mph in a 30 mph zone.

That's right... I didn't just get a speeding ticket, I got arrested.

What was strange was the way the police officer treated me. When I saw the flashing lights in my rear view mirror, there was no safe place to pull over right away. I had to drive for almost a mile with the cop behind me before I was able to pull off the road. The cop tailgated and swerved and flashed his headlights as if I was a speeding felon, even though I had slowed to about 25 mph as soon as I saw him. Once I stopped and he got out of his car, he approached me very slowly and suspiciously. He asked for my license and registration. When I reached for the glove box to get my registration, he said "that's far enough right there", and he pointed his gun at me! He claimed that I reached for a concealed weapon in my glove box. Then I got mad. I started yelling that his conduct was horrible and he had no right to treat me this way. So he arrested me.

Perhaps the strangest part was that there was an injured teenage boy in the cop's back seat, and the cop had been on the way to the hospital. The cop told me it was my fault that boy wasn't getting the medical attention he needed because he had to waste his time hauling me in.

I had this dream over a week ago, but I still think of it every day when I leave the office for lunch, especially when I'm driving Joe's car because I know I would have to reach for the glove box to get the vehicle registration.


Recurring (twice so far): Joe and I are homeless.

There's no indication of why we're homeless, and I don't have the same anger or fear as the dreams where I've lost my job. In fact, I'm strangely okay with it. I'm just happy to be with Joe, wherever we are. We sleep on the beach, we try crashing in this weird outdoor hotel or shelter but there are no extra beds, and we camp briefly at a covered outdoor arena, where there are other homeless people sleeping too. In one of the dreams, Joe has to go to New Zealand to get a job. The only way we can get there is to go through Australia. Australia doesn't require passports, so I'm able to get in just fine. But New Zealand does, and I don't have any ID. So Joe has to leave me in Australia while he goes to New Zealand. All I have with me is my purse and a spare pair of flip-flops. I don't know how I'm going to eat or where I'm going sleep. These are all the same problems I had before Joe left, but they were okay because we were together. Now that he's gone, I panic. When the panic wears off, I wander aimlessly.

Obviously a bit of separation anxiety.

When Is The Right Time?

I married a guy who thinks and analyzes too much. Not terribly surprising, since I myself think and analyze too much.

I know he's thinking about it, so naturally I'm thinking about it too.

We want to have children. For a variety of reasons, we've had difficulty deciding when to have to children.

Initially, he wanted to wait until he was finished with school, which would be a few years away. His schedule will be very demanding, he'll probably be away from home for several days at a time, and he won't have a full time job to help support a family. I, on the other hand, will have a full time job, and I'm not sure if I can continue to work and take on primary responsibility for a child while Joe is both busy and broke. That's a lot of pressure for me.

But there's this problem with age. I've read that the chances of having problems with pregnancy increase significantly after age 35. Greater difficulty getting pregnant, greater likelihood of complications or miscarriage, greater chance of having a baby with birth defects or Downs Syndrome.

This really scares the crap out of me. Having complications with a pregnancy is one of my biggest fears. Always has been.

When Joe comes home from Iraq next year, I'll be 32. We want to have two children, and we want to wait a couple years in between. We are both acutely aware that we don't have much time to achieve this goal if we want to keep the odds in our favor.

On top of that, we both just really want to have kids as soon as possible. The birth of Joe's niece has had an impact on both of us. She's a tiny premature miracle. When I hold her, it makes me want to be a mother so badly. And Joe can't stop talking about how much he wants a baby.

We've talked about trying to get me pregnant when he comes home on leave. He gets two weeks off, but we don't know exactly when. We're hoping that if it all works out, I might be a few months along by the time his deployment is over.

But then there's the issue of our relationship. When Joe comes home, we will have been married for 1 year. Yet, we will only have spent a few days together as a married couple. A part of me wants to experience a married relationship without kids for a while. I want to take the time to adore my husband, to put him first, be spontaneous, take trips, have lots of sex, and just generally be in love. All the things we would be doing now if he wasn't on deployment.

Having a baby and becoming parents inevitably changes the relationship. I'm so totally excited for that change, but at the same time I can't help feeling that I might miss out life before that change.

So for all these reasons, I'm torn. And Joe is torn. We both want children so badly, but... when?

By waiting, he can go to school, we can have our relationship, and we get a few more years of not being tied down financially. But we also risk pregnancy complications, health problems for me, especially since I already several health issues, and we'd have to somehow suppress our longing for the family we both want so much.

I'd actually be pretty excited if I was pregnant right now, except for the part where Joe wouldn't be here to experience it with me or see the birth of his child.

A strong part of me just wants to wait and see what happens. If I get pregnant when Joe is home on leave, so be it. If I don't, that's okay too. I would honestly be happy either way.

And that's what I told him when I talked to him this evening. But he was still thinking about it... and that makes me think about it... and here I am blogging because I'm still thinking about it.

I don't want to wait. Yet I do. Yet I don't. Yet...

All of this analyzing for an event that is still so far away. We're a couple of worriers.