Last night, I had a dream that Chris and Crista were teasing me relentlessly, and not in a happy, fun way. It started out as cute and fun, and it immediately became vicious. They both had an evil cackle, and I gradually felt like I was resenting them. I began walking away from them, and their laughter only grew louder. They were laughing at me, and the laughter was not ending anytime soon.

While it wasn’t a pleasant dream and left me feeling annoyed when I woke up, I thought about how well the two of them get along and what they have in common and what they don’t. They liked each other immediately when they met each other, and they both have very important roles in my life. But I hope this never happens in real life.

Today, some colleagues and I threw a surprise baby shower for a colleague who is having her second child. Our colleague was pretty surprised and enjoyed the shower and the gifts, but she said she was feeling weird and needed to call her doctor. She ended up leaving the office shortly after the shower, and just three hours after the shower began, she gave birth to her baby boy. That was a close one.

During the shower, a few colleagues were poking fun at me, saying that “you’re next” when it comes to having a baby. I immediately felt disgusted and said it wasn’t in the near future for me. It’s not that I don’t want to have children. I definitely want them in the future, but my mindset right now is so far away from them. I like my life the way it is. I like waking up in the morning and thinking about what I need to do for work and for myself and for Chris. Having to take care of another human being feels very far away right now. I don’t want to be one of those people who just have kids at certain ages because “that’s the age” to have kids. My mom thinks that age to have kids was about two to three years ago for me, so in her opinion, I’m already past my prime. And this New York City apartment definitely does not want children period.

I was looking at wedding statistics in the United States today. The average bride spends over $1,500 on her wedding gown according to the Bridal Association of America. The average wedding photographer charges about $2,800. The average wedding in this country costs about $30,000. These costs only go up if you are in major metropolitan areas. I think last year, I read that in New York City, the average wedding cost is around $90,000. And of course, we’re getting married in a major metro area, so that doesn’t help out cost-wise.

A wedding dress can cost as little as $50 (if I chose a random white dress off the rack from, say, H&M), or as much as $50,000 for a big brand name/haute couture. It’s crazy how much money we are willing to spend on a dress that we will likely only wear once and for just a handful of hours. While I’m not willing to spend even a tenth of what the high end is, it’s still ridiculous how our society has brainwashed even me into thinking that a few thousand dollars on a wedding dress is acceptable, particularly given that most of the work is outsourced to cheap labor countries like India and China. I’m pretty sure the dress designers aren’t paying them a comfortable yuppie wage.

I saw Ed again in my dream last night. We were sitting in a brightly lit conference room once again at a round table, and this time, Crista was there with us. I’m sitting across the table, Crista on my left side and Ed on my right. Crista has no idea that Ed is there in the room with us, but Ed knows that Crista is there. “She doesn’t know I’m here,” he says, with a devious smile on his face. “She can’t see me!” I tell Crista that Ed is sitting at the table with us, and she looks at the table and then around the room and is confused. She says to me that she doesn’t see him and insinuates that she thinks I am hallucinating. I insist to her that he is there, but she just can’t see him because he won’t reveal himself to her. She gives me The Look that says I’m crazy, and she carries on with our conversation. Ed sits at the table patiently, listening, waiting for Crista to stop talking so he can speak directly to me.

The last time I saw Ed at a round conference room table, my therapist was there. This time, Crista is there with us. When my therapist was there, we all knew everyone else was in the room, but this time, Ed is hiding from Crista. I’m not sure what to make of this, but I think there’s something to be said that Ed wants discussed.

And now as I am writing this out, I am remembering that I started crying at some point in that room with both of them. It hits me that Ed’s presence in the room is only temporary, and that I will never see him in human form ever again. Whenever I see him, it will only be for a few moments, and then he will disappear and reappear in the rarest times. He will never be in the flesh again.