Wedding anxiety dreams

Don't worry, that's actually a good thing. Nine hundred years ago, when I was engaged before, I never had a wedding anxiety dream. Because, well, I didn't sleep. I woke up every night with that rock in the pit of my stomach. You know that rock, that one that radiates deep, cold, sweaty fear and says "Run! Run for the hills!". This time around, the rock is gone. And I sleep like the dead every night.

In the past my anxiety dreams have centered around school, usually being sent back to high school--and sometimes even involving missing the bus. Now all my anxiety dreams center around the wedding. But here's the thing. John is always there. I'm never anxious about him. The anxiety always revolves around something relatively trivial. That's what anxiety dreams are about, right? Mine are always about either looking for something I can't find, or being late to something and being held up somehow.

And I'm always at my parents' church, wearing a big poofy white dress. I always think, "I'm not supposed to be getting married here, in this dress, at church, I'm supposed to be wearing a different dress and getting married at Wintergreen." All the guests are there, waiting, and John is inside, waiting too. Naturally, I'm either looking for something (my makeup, my shoes, Peg) or I'm late (I'm trying to deal with the food, find a bathroom, put on my makeup which I then can't find). In one version, I started running around to the front of the church so I could walk down the aisle, only to trip and fall headlong, getting grass stains all down the front of the big poofy white dress. Then of course I had to find something else to wear.

But John's always there, waiting patiently.

For years, I had a recurring nightmare about being left at the altar. I had a shamefully emotional moment watching that scene in the Sex and the City movie, because it so closely mirrored my recurring nightmare.

I haven't had that dream since meeting John.