Nightmare

I had a terrible dream last night.  I think it was the worst one I've ever had.  I'm not prone to nightmares, but this one was awful.  I dreamed that Rick was cheating on me.  It was so real - I remember which friend called me to tell me, what she said, how her voice sounded.  I remember Rick's face when I confronted him about it, and I remember the things I thought and the way I felt.  I remember what I said and what he said, and how my life felt like it was crumbling to pieces around me.

Then the phone rang, waking me up.  It was 7:30 AM and it was my mom, telling me she couldn't come over this morning because she thought she might have a cold and didn't want to give it to Lucy.  I held it together long enough to get through the phone call, and then I sobbed.  Wept.  Shoulders shaking, involuntary throat noises, gushing tears - the works.

Rick was downstairs and by the time I got to him I was in such a state that he was alarmed.  He said later that he thought something had happened to one of the kids.  It took me a while to get the story out, but once I did, he wrapped his arms around me, held me close, reminded me it was a dream, and assured me that he would never do anything like that.  I already knew this, of course, but the dream had felt so real.  So real.

This dream reminded me of how precious my marriage is.  My relationship with my husband is so very important.  After thirteen years together - eight of them married years - we have a pretty good understanding of the other.  But if we don't continue to work at it - if we don't make it a priority, things will start to slip and slide, perhaps unnoticed at first, and eventually they will start to unravel.  I have watched this happen in the marriages of several friends, and it has further convinced me that marriage needs to be protected at all costs.  This has been - without doubt - the most difficult three months of our relationship, but we are both committed to God, to each other, and to our family.  So though that dream had me running scared for a few minutes, I know I am safe, that my marriage is duly protected, and that I have nothing to fear.

Good thing, because getting cheated on would really suck.