My Real Life

I’ve been having a lot of dreams about tornadoes lately.

Last night, the dream was that I was in Wooster, Ohio (where I went to college).

My friend, Sharon, asked if I wanted to go to church with her, so I said okay.

She drove Monkey in the Middle and I to church and we found the last spot in the parking lot.

We walked to the door together and MiM and I walked in.

Some woman waved me over and said, “He can come with me,” and he went off to the children’s activity and I turned around to ask Sharon where she wanted to sit, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

However, suddenly Real Man’s sister was waving to me from the back of the church, so I went over to her.

We sat together for, what felt like, and interminable service and when it was over, I said, “I’m going to get MiM.”

We went to the kids room where he was involved in some activity with paints and glue.  He was very happy to see me.

We walked out into the parking lot and Sharon was standing there, tapping her foot.

“$475,” she said.

I was like, “Huh?”

She told us that she had, apparently, parked illegally and the cops had come and she now had a ticket for $475.

She was furious, as you can imagine, and as she’s talking, MiM starts tugging on my sleeve.  I look down at him and he’s staring into the sky.

I follow his gaze and see an enormous, black tornado swirling toward us.

Sharon, me, MiM, Real Man (who suddenly appears), and my sister-in-law hop into Sharon’s BMW (not really sure what kind of car she drives in real life) and she starts backing up to get away, however, it’s too close.

The car starts spinning and spinning, but staying on the ground.  Real Man is holding on to MiM and I for dear life (once we got in the car, his sister disappeared) and the car just spins and spins and then the funnel just disappears up into the sky.

Real Man, Mim and I hop out of the car and just start racing toward campus because all we can think about is finding Monkey Girl, Baby and Tiny, and then I woke up.

That’s how most of my natural disaster dreams are.  I’m in the midst of it, either alone or with one of the kids, and after the tide recedes, the funnel goes back into the clouds, the winds die down, I am running like the devil is at my heels to get to the rest of the family.

One website I checked said that tornado dreams mean you are feeling overwhelmed or life is chaotic.  I can definitely get on board with that explanation, these days.

I wrote about that very thing the other day, however, I don’t feel like life is out of control.

Or, maybe I do and I just don’t realize it.

My dreams are always quite colorful and intricate and I usually remember them upon waking, so they offer me a lot of fodder for self-reflection.

Hopefully tonight, instead of dreaming about almost being swept away by a tornado I could dream about winning the lottery.

That would be a much nicer way to wake up.