Sleep is usually rest time, unless you are tormented in your dreams by the people who left you.

I had a slew of dreams last night that blurred into one another. In one dream, it is Christmas day at Chris’s aunt and uncle’s house, and he proposes to me in front of his entire family. While I am excited, I am not particularly pleased with the solitaire diamond ring he has presented to me (that sounds terrible – I know. I’m so ungrateful apparently). After the initial chaos, I calm down and am deciding who to phone first to tell the big news of our engagement. While thinking about it, I draw a blank. I want to call no one.

Then, I remember coming home to my parents’ house to see Ed curled up in a ball on the living room floor. I run up to him, happy to see him, and I bend down and put my arms around him to hug him and have him hug me back. He gets up, breaks out of my grasp, and starts running. I start chasing after him, calling out his name, and he keeps running faster and faster. It is then noticeable that we are no longer running in our house but in some long, bright hallway, and the hallway doesn’t seem to have an end. I won’t give up, and I continue running after him, despite my awareness that I will never catch up to him. He always was a fast runner.

I have lost. I will never catch up to him.