Dreams

Most of my dreams either go unremembered or are so off-the-wall illogical that they don't bear remembering. Occasionally, though, I have one that seems to actually have some significance in my life.

My parents had been (in my dream) hosting a foreign exchange student from China. She was roughly my age, and apparently we got along pretty well. I don't really remember that part of the dream very well, but somehow, she and I decided to get married. This, of course, necessitated that her entire family fly over for the wedding. So we were waiting to get married,(in some non-temple-like gathering room with stadium seating,) but she was taking a long time to get dressed. A LONG time. Like, I was out there waiting for her for 45 minutes and she still wasn't ready.

So logically, my dad took my brothers and I to a nearby park to play while we waited for her to get dressed. And while we were out there, I suddenly realized that I really wasn't excited about marrying this girl. I mean, I knew that I liked her (in a cognizant sort of way... I didn't feel that I liked her, but I knew that I did,) but I didn't feel that I loved her. I've always been cautioned that marrying someone from a different culture is difficult; holiday traditions are different, expectations are different, and you generally just have to work a bit harder at things. And I wasn't sure that I was excited enough about this girl to put in that extra work. It probably didn't provide me any reassurance when I realized that I couldn't even remember her name.

At this point, I got a text message from her saying "Why are you not out there? Do you have special entering clothes as well?" (I assume referring to special clothing to be worn when entering the wedding chamber.) This just scared me even more... I wasn't ready for this! What about [insert real-life girl's name here]? Had I ever resolved my feelings about her? I couldn't remember! What about all the other girls in whom I'd been interested? What happened to all of them? Why did I choose to marry someone who I barely knew over one of them? Please let this all be a dream!

Since she'd text messaged me, we assumed that she was ready, and thus got in the car to head back. For some reason my dad was convinced that we needed to pick them up at the airport, so I had to remind him that no, they were all there waiting for us. He drove faster then, since the wedding chamber was even further away than the airport. My trepidation grew with every passing city block. I don't want to marry someone I didn't know! This is such a mistake! I wish this were a dream, but I'm afraid it's not!

Then I woke up. I can't tell you how relieved I was to find myself in my own bed, not getting married to the nameless Chinese exchange student.

Moral of the story: I have nothing against Chinese women, but please don't expect me to marry you when I can't even remember your name.