Dreams...

I woke up from a horrible dream today. It was an incredibly emotional dream.

In the dream, my husband and I were driving home from work and saw a young black toddler girl running (or rather toddling quickly) on the dashed line between the number one and number two lanes on the freeway. It was as if no one saw her, or no one cared. After a bit of effort, my husband and I were able to pull over, wait until a moment when there was a gap in traffic on the number one lane, and rush in to save her. I remember the panic and horror, watching cars come too close for comfort to her, her crying out of fear and confusion, and me feeling totally helpless. It reminded me of a time in real life when a stray puppy started following me home, and couldn't be dissuaded. I eventually had to encourage the puppy to follow me across a busy street so I could control his timing and he would have less of a chance of getting hit. Just as I was crossing the street, though, the little puppy stopped to pee. When he finished, he ran across the street to reach me, but it was too late, and a car hit him hard in the hip, breaking at least one of his legs. I felt so guilty for not protecting this poor puppy, and then had no choice but to get on my bus and leave him in the hands of some people in the neighborhood. I had no phone, no money to make any calls, was in a very unsafe neighborhood, would have had no way to contact a vet or my parents, and would have had to wait another hour in the neighborhood as it became dark and even less safe. I know I made the right decision leaving the puppy with the other people, but I still felt like it was so much my responsibility and I had just left him. I checked back with several people in the neighborhood over the next few weeks, but no one had any idea what I was talking about, and I never heard what happened to the poor guy. Watching the girl in my dream running, and not immediately being able to save her, and the fear that looking at her might cause her to run the wrong way and get hit, all gave me nearly crippling fear, and a huge feeling of anxiety and nausea.

This is not the end of the dream, nor why it was so emotional and harsh.

We saved her. I made sure she was safe. I overcame my fear and was the only person to make any attempt to save her. I was the only person who seemed to care. My husband and I did the right thing.

Then, in the dream, instead of immediately calling 911 and having police and medical involved to ensure she was safe and could be reunited with her family, I decided she must be running on the freeway because of unfit parents, and that she was some sort of divine gift to me. I found her, I saved her, I could keep her. The fact that I later discovered she had blue eyes, like me, only seemed to reinforce this idea in my mind--something like serendipity. We stopped at a store with her on the way home and roughly estimated her age and diaper size, clothing size, and dietary needs. Finally, we headed home with her. She seemed happy, and we took this to mean we were doing the right thing and she now belonged with us. We bathed her, fed her, played with her, and went to sleep with her, all without once calling the authorities. We even stopped somewhere to make dinner reservations for Thanksgiving, adding her to the attendance count.

Then I woke up. When I woke up, I remembered thinking I should call the authorities. I remember thinking that what we were doing was not entirely saving her. She should be checked by a doctor for any injuries, and in the case of her running off (and her real parents not being to blame), who was I to decide they were ultimately unfit as parents and I would be the best candidate to raise this child. I remember thinking all these things in the dream, knowing my actions and reactions and lack of acting was so so wrong, but doing them anyway, out of desperation and selfishness.

It broke my heart to think that subconsciously, in a dream, I could take actions that were clearly so fundamentally wrong, and rationalize them as being right. I had, after all, SAVED the little girl's life.

She was such a lovely child, too.