10/10

I have always had pretty vivid dreams. It’s honestly something I love about my brain. Even within the dream, I know exactly why I’m dreaming that thing. Stressed? Usually a dream about my mom and I fighting. Watching House of the Dragon right before bed? You bet I’m dreaming about dragons in my everyday life. Excited about meeting my best friend’s new baby? I will definitely dream that I am randomly having to do a lot of things with him for no reason and my friend can’t or won’t help (my brain doesn’t know the difference between excitement and anxiety). 

And so it makes sense that lately I’ve started having regular dreams about my dad. All the other circumstances are the same. We were watching Chernobyl the other night (great show, by the way) and I dreamt that he was with me in Russia. He’s just…there. And one thing about my brain, especially as of late, is that I usually know I’m dreaming. I can’t lucid dream in that I can’t control what’s happening in the dream, but I know I’m dreaming. So in my dreams, I know he’s dead. There’s always one part of the dream in which he just stares, or he disappears from behind me, or people are talking about him like he’s not there and I realize “oh, I guess he maybe wasn’t here after all.” And it feels very normal, natural, to have him there or not, he’s just…a presence. 

Last night, I dreamt about seeing a movie (I was supposed to see a horror movie yesterday but chickened out and flaked and was feeling bad about it). In this dream, I’m seeing a normal, non-horror movie, but the trailers are for horror movies (something that happens in real life and I hate. Why am I seeing a horror trailer while waiting to watch Poor Things or Twisters!?). So, as I would in real life, I walk out of the theater to wait out those trailers. And when I walk out, my dad is walking in with popcorn (something he would have never done – he was infamous for bringing in Walgreens candy or a full on can of Coke Zero and opening them so loudly I was terrified that he would get kicked out by one of the 16 year olds working the theater, but I digress). He saw me walk out and decided to follow me. In Dreamland there was a beach themed patio bar outside the theater, so we decided to hang there until the trailers were done, but I could still hear the trailers playing. Luckily for me, more and more people started entering the bar, and eventually it was so loud I couldn’t hear them anymore. Surrounded by people I realized were all my dad’s friends. They mill about and talk, and Dad and I grab drinks at the bar, him an MGD and me a cocktail, just like we would have (this bar must have been in Wisconsin, because nowhere else in the world would they serve MGD in a bottle). 

I don’t remember exactly what happens next, but for some reason I start to get stressed about finding which theater is the one playing my movie, and I need to get back before it starts, blah blah, and I’m walking around with my dad in tow, trying to figure this out. We walk back out to the bar area and we’re conversing about whatever Dream Me & Dream Dad were talking about, and I realize that one of his good friends is posing with his kids and grandkids, all decked out in Packer gear (apparently this beach themed theater/bar was across from Lambeau). I turn to my dad to tell him, and realize that no one else can see him. If we’re in a room full of his friends, they’re not speaking to him because he’s not there. And as I start to realize that, he starts to walk away. I grab him, hugging him, squeezing him, begging him not to go, and he starts to hug me back, but he disappears. As soon as he’s gone, his friend realizes I’m there and says “oh hey Aly! Good to see you!” and I woke up.

It was like many of the dreams I’ve had recently, but in this one, we hugged. And it felt…real. 

It shifted my mood to start the day, I feel like I’m all over the place. I am kind of crabby, and on the way to work I wanted to call someone, to verbally process what I was feeling, but I couldn’t even really put it into words because I was afraid if I did I’d fall apart. I can’t fall apart today, I’m too busy. I can’t call out of work, it’s the middle of busy season. I can’t cry all the way to work and show up a mess, or be distracted by this thought all day.

I just keep thinking about that hug. My brain is regularly pretty mean to me, but this seemed especially cruel. Lately, it’s felt nice to have him there in my dreams. I know rationally why he’s there, even while dreaming, and it’s nice to know that my brain remembers a Dad that isn’t on hospice, isn’t sick, and is smiling along with me. I try to convince myself that it was nice having a hug from him in a dream. But do I remember what a real hug from him actually feels like? He was kind of an awkward hugger, he would give these weird side-hugs just like his mom did. Affectionate, but only in a way where he could escape easily and make sure they didn’t go on too long. They usually involved a pat on the back that was just a little too hard because he didn’t know the strength of his huge hands. But every once in a while, when I hadn’t seen him in a particularly long time, he’d get out of the car when picking me up at the airport, and even before he picked up my bags, would wrap me up in a big Dad hug. I loved those hugs. He’d smile really big and say “nice to see ya! Traffic wasn’t too bad gettin’ here. How was your flight?” and before I had a chance to answer he’d start on about the weather, acting as if he hadn’t talked to me in years, instead of just the night before.

I can imagine, in theory, what one of those feels like. But just for a split second, in a dream, I felt it for real. And I’ll be thinking about that for what feels like probably forever. 

I hope I keep dreaming about him, and maybe, years from now, I’ll be glad he’s hugging me in dreams, but for today, it feels like a little crack in the armor I’ve been building.