Wishful Sleeping


I have a recurring dream that strikes me when I’m vulnerable to the nostalgic blues. In the fogginess of my sleep, I go back and undo one of the biggest decisions my husband and I ever made. I’m back in the home we left behind. Even though I feel a sense of disbelief that I’m there, I’m elated that it’s ours again and relieved that we hadn’t moved away.

As I dream, something is gnawing at my conscience. I’m feeling I need to be careful. My emotions are on high alert. I walk through the familiar rooms and while I can’t quite believe I’m back, I am wondering where do I really live?

In the morning light, I wake and look around my familiar surroundings and realize my mind spent the night in my former life. The Dream reminds me, yet again, there’s no going back. You see, it was more than just a home; it was moving away from the life we had known. 


As I begin my day, I feel vaguely dissatisfied with life, wishing I had what I left behind...imagining what life would have been like had we stayed. I'm reminded again how choices change your life.

Wouldn’t life be interesting if we could dream our decisions before we make them and see where they take us? We could go to sleep and see what happens if we take this job, if we move there, or marry that person. If we could just see a bit more than we do.

I know. It doesn’t work that way. Choices can be tough and once we make them, we can no longer travel down those same old roads. Or if we have a chance to go back, it’s not the same. We just can’t see around life’s corners. Sometimes the right choices seem wrong and the wrong ones seem right. Confusing at best. Depressing at worst. The Dream taunted my choices.

Enough. I looked back over my life's biggest choices…. I married a terrific guy, built a career with him, had awesome kids, and lived the kind of life I hoped I could. My choices brought me here. Wise choices take us in the right direction, but not always to where we planned to go.

I try not to play the multiple-choice game and wonder "what if" I had chosen differently. So I’ve made a new choice to let go….and that’s a good thing. Letting go makes life a whole lot less burdensome, and eventually you reach a place called Contentment—a place where joy lives. Believe me, once you’re living there you don’t want to move. 

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