these dreams

Ever have that hyper realistic dream? The one that feels like there is a glitch in the matrix but cannot figure it out as you stumble around your environment. 

I had a dream so vivid last night it was almost heart stopping to snap out of it. Like I was plunged into a huge body of water face first, gasping for air, but instead. . . It was me waking up. 

I was at home. This home. But it was different. Lived in. Like really lived in. School bags and running shoes scattered. Textbooks and notebooks and pencils, oh my. There was more than one youth in this house today. Friends over. 

This made me smile. Like the warmth that comes from the first sip of a hot cup of tea. Burning but feels so damn good. 

The kitchen came into focus and I could see to my left the kitchen breakfast nook I have always wanted. With the large wooden table. White and blue accent cushions. The big winged back armchair at the head of the table. 

Yup. This must be in the future for all this to be in place. 

Across the table was homework scattered like messy thoughts in a creative brain. Organized chaos. 

This must be my kid. 

I focused on the face but couldn’t quite make it out. 

I heard the distance echo of a greeting, whispered through the tunnel of time. 

“Hi mum, is it ok for my friend to stay for dinner?”

“Of course” I smiled again. The more the merrier is my mantra. I love the sound of a full house. The measured bedlam of it all. “All your friends are always welcome darling.”

Bliss. 

Suddenly I was already moving into the kitchen proper. But something was different. The bay window, it wasn’t there. There was a giant gap that lead into a sunroom. 

This is most definitely a dream. The fact that the hubs agrees to a breakfast nook to my specifications AND a sunroom?! I have to go check this out. 

The distant giggles of youth are still singing from the table behind me. 

I can feel the warmth of the room start to greet my face like an old friend. Soft, endearing and ever so welcoming. Stepping into the sunroom, I am surrounded by textured pillows on rich coloured padded benches. The lush greenery of the hanging plants filled the air with the smell of permanent spring. All around me the light danced through the windows in a slow waltz with the tiniest amount of dust. 

And there she was.

Knees bent, back propped up on a pile of pillows, nose deep in a book with a finger slowly meandering over the rim of her tea cup that rested on the nearby wooden table in the corner. 

She must have been in her teens. She smiled at me with those wise eyes. Those deep brown almond shaped eyes. The ones that can sweep you into their abyss and never let you go. She needed not even crack a smile. Her eyes said it all. She spoke anyway “Hello mother. Is his friend staying for dinner?”

Wait. What?! If this was Remington, then who was at the kitchen table with their friend?! Hisfriend. 

A son. 

A lump burned into the back of my throat. Tears in my eyes. I can’t breathe for a moment. Must. Catch. My. Breath. 

A daughter ANDa son? 

Remi stood up and reached out to hug me. She was so tall, so magnificent, so beautiful. 

“Dad’s back from walking Waffles.”
This couldn’t be real. 

Then I realized it wasn’t. It was a dream, and it was starting to fade as fast as I was dropped into it. 

I realized I was not gasping for air as I woke, but for a reprieve so that I can go back and visit. Sit at the table with my whole family. Have dinner. Study my sons face. Hold my daughters hand. Marvel at how more handsome hubs gets with each year. Figure out what breed of dog Waffles is. Or maybe Waffles is a cat?

But it wasn’t real.

Yet.