What If... It Wasn't A Dream?

Friday before last I announced-- very officially, mind you-- that, from now on, Fridays will be 'What If List" day.  

And then I promptly forgot.  

Because, really, I write Friday's posts on Thursday night, so even though I was typing the post for Friday, I was thinking of it as a Thursday thing-- plus, all this dramatic nonsense with my dogs had just gone down, so I was rattled. 

Anyway, now it's too late.  And that's okay, because next up on the list was "What if I adopt and my kid has huge adoption issues?"  And it looks like, for now, I'm not going to try to adopt.  

Although I did have an adoption related moment today.  One of those cosmic, the-universe-is-out-to-get-me, kinda things.  Just love those.

I've been packing my house in preparation for putting it on the market, and I found the journal that I wrote when I was in Ethiopia, almost three years ago now.  As I stood in the hall, box of books at my feet, journal in my hand, that Lucy Kaplansky Song That Always Makes Me Cry started playing on my iPod.  Which would have been bad enough, but it just so happens, that right there in the hall is a photograph of the little girl I wanted to adopt.  So I'm reading the journal where I describe the Ethiopian orphanage where she lived, and the day I showed up and she had a snot-covered face and a wet bottom, and how I didn't want that for her anymore, and this song starts ("...she's lying in a bed in some crowded room... she's getting used to being left behind..."), and I'm looking at her little smiling face in the picture on my wall...

I didn't not cry.

Some things just suck.  

So, to lighten the mood, let me tell you about a very deep, spiritual experience I had a couple nights ago... 

I'm asleep.  And I start to feel a pressure on my body.  Like someone put a board on top of me, from my knees to my chest, and started pressing down on it...

And I'm like, "WTF?  Do I have a ghost?  Do I have a GHOST WHO'S TRYING TO SUFFOCATE ME?"  Cuz that's not cool.  Now I'm trying to wake up, but my eyes just WON'T.  PRY.  OPEN.  So I start to think of all the dead people I know, because clearly I'm being haunted.  And my house has been ghost-free, lo, these many years, so it must be personal, right?  This isn't some random ghost.  This is someone I know.  So I go down the list of dead prospects, then I whisper, real tentative-like, in my head, "Gramma?"

And BOOM.  No more pressure.  Instead, there's a little flickery light, and it's my Gramma, and she is annoyed as hell with me, because she's apparently been trying to tell me something for awhile but I guess I haven't been listening.

"What is it, Gramma," I whisper in my head.

And my Gramma says, "Move to Beverly Hills."

Seriously.  That's what she said.  

So I said, "Beverly Hills is too expensive, Gram.  How do you feel about Pasadena?"

Really.  

So now I know: Gram's fine with Pasadena.  I'm so glad we talked.

Comments

[Julie]

Wow. Tears and chills.

[Angelina]

What a cool, scary, wonderful story. Nice feeling to know your Gram is looking out for you, isn't? But why was she trying to suffocate you to begin with?

[Rebecca Littlest]

Posts like this are why I'm addicted to your blog! :-)

[Sarah Fain]

Angelina-- Right? I have no idea. I think she should approach me more gently next time!

Julie & Rebecca-- Thanks, ladies!

[steve]

Did your grandma happen to check out the donut shops in Pasadena? I know there can't be any good ones in Beverly Hills.

[Ana from far away]

I get so freaked out with those weird dreams, that I never get the message. Lately I've been having a lot of nightmares, but I just don't get them.

[Sarah Fain]

Steve-- Tell you what. If I move to Pasadena, I promise to bring you to Ms. Donut at least once every time you visit!

Ana-- Dreams can be frustrating, right? I suppose I should appreciate that this one was so clear!

[Lexi]

Hey, at least she didn't say "Eat your lima beans."