MAN OF MY DREAMS

I can’t wait to go back to sleep. I dreamed in short, vivid snippets last night and one episode was particularly wet. No, not in a smutty, Health 101 way. It involved a pool of water. And me. And a guy.

Again, nothing sexual. To get that kind of thinking out of your head, let me share that one of the other dream sequences involved being chased by unpredictably playful zebras. I have a recurring nightmare wherein I am forced to eat steak. (I’ve been a vegetarian for almost thirty years.) Seems my internal oddities roam unfiltered in REM sleep.

So back to the pool, the guy and me. I cannot recall what he looked like. All I know is a feeling: unguarded glee. We shared it. Both of us fully clothed and standing near the pool, he scooped me up and leaped into the water as I laughed and he grinned. A simple act which, when it involves someone special, can be an exhilarating moment.

No need to overanalyze the teensy vignette. However, it combines a couple components that make me feel my happiest. I have a deep connection with water. I swim six kilometers a week at a local pool—sigh, no grinning suitor to be found—and I moved to my rural home specifically because of the water view. So much of my life has been shaped by experiences linked with pools, a river, a lake and oceans—friendships, high school survival (swim team), career (linked back to lifeguarding). It is odd, in fact, that no dating experience or relationship has linked with water. I’ve never thought about it before, but none of my exes had any comfort in water. Perhaps we were doomed from the get-go. Perhaps for my next date I should ask the guy to produce his swimming level certificate. Tadpole?! Uh, sorry.

Yes, overanalyzing...

I also know that I have a robust laugh—the kind that can be infectious or grating depending my company’s disposition. When work is too intense, when I am fatigued, when I do not seem to be flourishing, that laugh goes dormant. If I laugh at all, it becomes a motion on mute, an oddly internalized chuckle that cannot break out. There is a direct correlation between my expression of laughter and my sense of thriving and even my writing creativity. (Reading this, you can probably discern that I am in the midst of a muffled laughter period.)

That little dream instantly awakened me. It underscores my need to feel joyful and to feel unrestricted. It also represents hope. Prospects of ever connecting with another man seem bleak. Maybe, just maybe, he’s still out there. Alas, this is January and I am in Canada. Pool season is months away. Come June, if you hear reports of a fully clothed middle-aged man lurking at the community pool, know that it’s just me, the quirky dude who runs with zebras.

 

Tonight I’ll hit the pillow early. I’ll invite my pool mate into my dreams once more. Alas, why is it that the good dreams are one-shot wonders while the horrid nightmares (filet mignon!) have no qualms with invading the bedroom over and over?

I’ll take my chances. It is worth it to dream again.