Nightmare #2: the Wrong Choice

Last night I had another nightmare.

It was before the wedding, a few weeks before. I broke up with G. I told him that it wasn't that I didn't love him, I just felt that I needed to work things out with Dimarc. G was crushed, but didn't throw a fit. He sadly told me that he didn't think it was the right thing to do, that he didn't want me to do this. It's the only time I ever remember seeing him cry. Eventually he turned away from me and walked off, literally vanishing into darkness.

The next thing I knew, I was re-marrying Dimarc, in a cloud of tulle. Literally, this big cloud of tulle was all around my head - although not over my face. It was a Catholic ceremony - odd since Dimarc is also Jewish! We were being married in a grand cathedral, all yellow marble and a vaulted ceiling so high it didn't seem to exist. We were married by a cardinal, wearing the skullcap and heavily embroidered vestments typical of pre-reformation clergy. (I've been watching The Tudors, so I'm sure that's where that image came from.) I remember the cardinal preparing to give us communion, with the host in his hand, and I distinctly recalling hearing someone incanting in nomini patri, et fili, et spiritu sancti. I don't recall seeing the cardinal's lips move; just hearing a somber man's voice chanting in latin.

The next scene, I was sitting at my parent's dining room table in Illinois, with Dimarc and my Mom and Dad. We were finishing up breakfast. My parents and Dimarc were discussing something - politics, auto maintenance, something that I wasn't actively talking about, but I was listening and following the conversation. I ventured an idea.. Maybe this? Some suggestion. Dimarc guffawed and made a sarcastic comment about how I was clearly an expert in the matter. My mother said I should stay out of it. My dad expressed support for whatever Dimarc had previously been saying. Dimarc looked triumphant, and got up and left the table. I was left alone with my parents. I felt like I'd been slapped in the face.

This was more typical of an interaction with my ancient ex-fiancee Earl. He was an incredibly insecure person who put me down in front of others every chance he got to make himself feel powerful. Somewhere in my brain I mixed memories of Earl with memories of Dimarc, which is incredibly unfair to Dimarc, but that's what my head was doing.

I proceeded to tell my parents that I didn't like being ganged up on. I told them that they were MY PARENTS and I expected them to never take sides against me again, and that I would not tolerate being put down by them or my husband ever again. They were to treat me respectfully or I would leave.

I was shaking with rage. My vision blurred. My mother reached for my hand and said, honey, you can't just leave, you're married. "I left before, and I'll leave again," I stated coldly and quietly. "You just watch me. You know I will." My father looked very sad, and uncomfortable. He fidgeted a bit in his chair, then decided not to say whatever was on his mind and got up from the table. As he was exiting the room, my mother and I looked at each other. Her face was that of a bewildered child, seeing something she had never seen before, something she didn't understand. My fury consumed me and I actually thought I would burst into flames. As tears began to roll down my clenched jaws, the scene dissolved. I was awake.

When I opened my eyes I didn't know where I was. I had to slowly realize I was in a bedroom. How did I get here? A bedroom... Nyack... this is my bedroom... our bedroom. G. I married G. It was a dream. It's not real. That didn't happen.

"HONEY..." I called weakly. G came into the room and leaned over me. I grabbed at him like a drowning person grabs a life preserver. My half-asleep heart fluttered with real fear.

"buh-buh-buh," G said, making goo-goo sounds at me, like one makes to a fussing baby.

"I had 'nuther nightmare..." I groaned. "I dreamed we weren't married and I was married to Earl and it was so awful and you were gone forever and it was so horrible..."

"Really!" G sounded amused as I clamped my hand around his arm and tried to focus my eyes. I held him fast. "It was just a dream," he said. He seemed like he was trying not to laugh at me. I clenched his arm furiously.

"No... don't go..." I don't know if I said this or just mumbled something at him. He leaned down and hugged me again, and then very gently, almost imperceptibly, pulled away, not dislodging my hand, just suggesting that maybe I should let him go to work.

I managed to open my eyes. I looked at him. There he was, in his polo shirt and dress pants, with a bemused smile on his face, his eyes sparkling. "I'll see you in a bit," he said. I let him go, sliding back under the covers for a few more minutes snooze. I did not fall back asleep, and I did not dream again. About 15 minutes later I was up, beginning my day.