Uncertainty and Expectation

Joining in with Gypsy Mama today to take five minutes to write.  The topic?  Expectation.

Ready?

Go.

Expectation.  My first thought?  Is that a real word?  It sounds funny to me, but I think it must be real. 

Husband and I are in a season that is sort of terrifying, sort of amazing, and definitely full of expectation.  He's on his way to a job interview as I write, just pulled out of his parking spot.  He's registered for his first three classes to go to college, to be an electrical engineer, to do something he finds interesting and purposeful with his life. 

Life is full of uncertainty at the moment.  Will he get a job that he likes for the interim?  Will he be able to find a job soon?  Will we be able to continue to afford living in our townhome, or will we have to sell and move to an apartment or in with my family?  Will we be able to manage both of us with full time jobs, him in school, and a new baby, our first?  Will the challenges we'll be facing stretch us too much, or in just the ways we need to be stretched?  Will our marriage be tested in ways we are not prepared for?  So much uncertainty, so many things that could terrify me.

Expectation though, well, expectation is the positive twist to uncertainty.  Even with all these things, there is much to expect.  Much joy, much growth, much life.

Expectation, then, instead of uncertainty.  I'll take it.

Weirdest Dream Ever.

Had to share this dream, it was so bizarre to me.

I was at school, in my classroom, and my mom was there, too, logically.  We'd just sat down at the front of the room, getting ready to teach, I suppose.  I have this tall chair I got over break to sit in once in a while to get off my feet, so I was seated there, with Mom nearby.

The baby was kicking ferociously, and we could see the outline of his little feet pushing through my belly.  Suddenly, he crawled out of my stomach (through my belly button, I imagine?), curled up, and settled down right on top of my baby bump.  Completely naked, no more than 3 or 4 inches long, perfectly formed, and still connected to me through the umbilical cord, a baby curled up on top of my belly.  Curled up into the tiniest little ball, just like our dog does when she's sleeping.

And we thought this was totally normal.

Still, we told him to go back inside, because it wasn't time yet.  So back into the womb he went, and life went on.

Weird, right? 

Husband's reaction?  "It sounds like a little Voldemort baby on your tummy."  (Referencing the last Harry Potter movie where we see this weird, baby-like thing of Voldemort, of those of you who don't know.)

My friend's reaction?  "Sounds like a Kangaroo.  You should name him Joey."

Husband's reaction to my friend's reaction?  "Let's call him Roo from now on!"  And then a discussion about what Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animals we had as children.

My family's reaction?  They just laughed at me.  And then we got into a discussion regarding how big the Peanut (or Roo, apparently) actually is - which is approximated to be 14 inches completely stretched out.  This resulted in Husband showing how long he thought 14 inches was, my sister thinking his estimate was too big and getting a ruler to test him, my mom getting up and looking at his hands and guessing Husband was holding up 15 inches, my sister only being able to find a 6-inch ruler, my dad going to get the yard stick to measure and discovering that Husband was holding his hands 15 inches apart, and my mom nodding with satisfaction at how correct her guess was.

Ridiculous.

Oh, baby dreams, how strange you can be sometimes.  Baby, we're not quite ready for you, but we're excited. 

Dreams

Do you believe in dreams? 

Bed of Dreams, Kathy Ostman-Magnussen

I don't, really. 

I think they're a bunch of random images from our subconcious blended together in our imagination to form who knows what.  I often remember dreams, at least for a little while.  I suppose that makes me a light sleeper, since you have to wake up during the dream to remember it?  Normally my dreams make little sense, but are pleasant and interesting.  I have dreams that take place in recurring situations.  If I dream about my home, it's always the home I lived in from 2nd- 7th grade, but with some weird twist - usually the bathroom is not the bathroom but some other room.  If I dream about school, it's never the school I work at now, but a composite of the different places I've attended and worked over the years.  Most of the time I wake up and think, "that was nice," or sometimes, try to go back to sleep and pick up where I left off.  You know, to get back that warm, fuzzy feeling of happiness.

I don't have bad dreams very often, although when I do, I usually try to "re-invent" the ending of the dream - you know, close my eyes, half sleep, and will the dream to change.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  The worst dream of my life was a few years ago, and it was so vivid and so awful that I don't even care to tell you about it.

The last week or so, though, I've been having some weird dreams, and not ones I love.  The first one involved me ticking off some guys who then starting beating the crap out of my dog. I woke up seriously upset by that one and had to cuddle Ginny for a while to settle down.  The next night I dreamt of snakes - and I hate hate hate, double hate, loathe entirely snakes.  And in this dream, Ginny and a little tiger I had for some reason were tearing about the snakes.  This morning I woke up after having a weird dream where good friends of ours (not people I actually know in real life, but friends in dreamland) went through a big trauma I don't feel like typing, either.

My mom says maybe I need to pray.

It reminds me of a summer morning several years ago when I was working at an English camp in Spain.  There were five of us 20-something girls all working there who had become quite close.  One morning I woke up after having a dream I can't remember anymore, but with a distinct heavy feeling that I couldn't shake.  I got up early and sat on the couch reading the Bible and praying and, as I did so, a clear sense of peace began to wash over me.  Later that morning when I got to camp, the girls and I were talking.  Four of us had all experienced the same thing - a foreboding feeling that was almost tangible - and we had all immediately dropped to our figurative knees to spend time with the One.  And we all were calmed. 

Now, I don't know what that was about, but I do remember it was powerful.

And so, while I don't really believe in the significance of dreams meaning anything, I do suspect perhaps I should get back on my knees again. 

Hopefully, tomorrow, I'll wake up wanting to go back to sleep to continue the warm, fuzzy feeling, instead of anything else.