Dreams are what you make of them

Ever have one of those dreams that just shakes you to the core? You know the ones. Where it is so vivid that it feels like reality? Where you can still recall almost every detail of the dream days later?


A few nights ago I dreamt of Her. It has been a while since I have had a dream where she has been in it. They used to happen almost every night but two years later, they are few and far between. In this one, she wasn’t dead. Her husband was the only one that died that night. She wasn’t even involved in the crash. I have noticed my dreams go back and forth between one or the other surviving, but never both.

I was in some kind of fancy hotel lounge/bar. There must have been an event that had just gone on or something because it had that look of desertion. You could tell someone had gone through some trouble to meticulously decorate only to find by the end of the night, nobody really cared enough about the details. Flowers in the vases were wilting, tablecloths were wrinkled and used, chairs were out of place. It was beautiful nonetheless. I must have attended some kind of event myself as I was wearing a black dress. I didn’t notice until later however, that I was not wearing any shoes.

As I walked into this place, I noticed her sitting at a table with a man. I heard her telling him that she doesn’t know how she is going to make it without her husband. That she cannot live without him. The same line she told me in the past. When she was alive. I walked straight over to her and interrupted her conversation with him and sat down at the table. I could tell they were both slightly irritated. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to sort out our differences and talk about what happened between us. I wanted to ask her if she forgave me. I ordered a drink from the waitress who walked up to us as I sat down. She asked for my ID and as I looked into my wallet I noticed it was missing. I kept looking for it, always going back to that spot in my wallet that was supposed to hold it. Never anywhere else, as if it would just show up there if I looked enough times.

I told her I would be right back, I was going to my car to see if it was there. I left my purse but took my wallet. I still kept looking in that spot as I ran down this long wide lobby. There were people on all sides just staring at me as I ran, frantically looking in my wallet. They all seemed to be judging me, or laughing at me, or feeling sorry for me. I couldn’t really tell. I felt this overwhelming urge to find it and get back to her. I had so many important things I needed to tell her.

I never made it back. I woke up before I left the lobby, before I could make it to my car. I felt sadness when I woke. My dreams are the only time I get to see her anymore and they are so short. Most of the time they are like this. Frantic. Searching for answers to questions that will never be answered.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this dream. It seems so silly doesn’t it? It wasn’t anything special really. I kept wondering why this one has stuck with me so much. Until today.

I had to show my ID to someone and as I opened my wallet to pull it out, I noticed the fortune I have had since shortly after she died. The fortune I keep in my wallet, right on top of my ID in the little window so I can always see it.

“Joy will come with the return of a good friend”

I have no idea what this means. I have never been one to fully believe in “signs” from the dead. It could absolutely be my subconscious playing mean tricks on me. Then again, I did get that fortune right after she died, and in my dream I was searching my wallet, going back to that exact spot over and over and over again.

I have always thought the fortune meant someone I already knew. Someone who was already a friend but had lost touch with, and even had hopes that in some way, it would be Her. Maybe though, it means that good friendship will return, not necessarily in someone I already know, but in someone new. I will once again have that kind of friendship I so greatly miss with Her. Maybe she was telling me that I will, in fact, find my “person” and be happy again.

Or maybe I so desperately want and need a friend that my subconscious is making me go crazy.