A Sign

With responsibilities increasing at work and at the same time, responsibilities at home increasing as The Memes deteriorates little by little, it was only a matter of time before I had what may be the worst nightmare of my life.

I dreamed I was living in the house we lived in when I was a teenager, but modernized. It was nice, and we had a big backyard, and my dad had a really nice play area put in with really green grass. The first part of my dream was of me and J (my son) walking home from somewhere through the abandoned orange grove that separated our neighborhood from the next. We approached our yard and I said, "It was really nice for Grandpa to build that before he died."

My son replied, "Yeah, even though we're a little too old for that now. It's still nice to come out here and sit."

As we walked past and up to the house, I looked back at the play area, and it was flooded, as though there'd been a deluge of rain.

In the house, I found my mom struggling to breathe as she tried to cut up an unfamiliar carrot type thing  with long green stalks and roots (she called it a strawberry, lol) for an old homeless lady. I immediately took over so she could rest, and as I cut up the thing, a neighbor I'd never met came in and started talking to me. He was dressed like...well, in Florida, people would say "redneck," and he had missing teeth. He looked like he hadn't shaved or showered in a few days.

He started talking about how beautiful C was (my 14 yr old daughter), and as he was talking, my business office manager from work walked in with Logan, my son's friend from Elementary school. I glanced around the house and was thankful it was clean. Then, it dawned on me what that lowlife guy was thinking about my daughter, and the knife I was cutting the strawberry with wasn't good enough.

I grabbed the most wicked looking scissors you have ever seen. More like rusty hedge clippers you could use with one hand. I ran up to him as he was strutting toward the door, yanked him by the collar, spun him around, and put the scissors to his throat. "If you EVER get near my daughter, let alone TOUCH her, I will use these to first cut off your dick (which is a word I do not say in real life), then slit your throat, and then lop off your head."

He probably didn't know what "lop" meant, but he got the idea and ran away.

I went back inside to finish cutting the "strawberry" and to entertain my business office manager while I tried to figure out why she was at my house and being so nice.

Then, one of the most terrible things in the world that could ever happen, happened. And this morning, with it so vivid and fresh in my mind, I write with tears in my eyes and wonder if I can even write it.

Logan runs in the house, screaming that J was hit by a car while walking home from the bus. As I rush to go out, my ex-boyfriend from two years ago, Kelly (who I'm still friends with but haven't seen in several months) rushes in with J wrapped in a blanket. He's crying, and I start crying too as he unwraps the top part of the blanket to reveal my son, who looks much younger than 13, limp and lifeless. His head rolled sort of unnaturally to the side, and deep inside, I knew he was dead. But I screamed, "Is he alive?! Is he alive?!" I looked at his chest, which was still--not breathing. And I rushed forward, ready to do CPR and to breathe life into him. And then I woke up.

It was awful. I immediately knew why I dreamed this. I'm trying to do too much, and it's a warning to slow down. I'm staying late at work, working full time, but still not receiving full time pay or benefits despite multiple promises that it's coming, and trying to help everyone else when I need to concentrate my efforts more at home.  The sad thing is that Kelly was the one that brought J in. Kelly was more of a father figure to J than J's own father, and I suspect that's why he was there.

So, this morning, I'm trying to calm my racing heart and making plans to cut my work schedule until I get paid what I'm worth. Maybe it will take a week of me going home early for them to realize how much I do.

Sometimes, I'm appalled at the medical field, and how quickly people are judged and labeled. How patients become "problems" simply because they're hurting or lonely (often both), and don't know what else to do. It's no wonder my phone rings off the hook all day. I've been told more than once that I'm the only one who really listens to them, and I'm the only one who gets things done for them.

Where has all the empathy and compassion gone?

I'm starting to believe that if everyone had Asperger's, the world would be a nicer place...