Dreams.  Who can understand them?  Why do they come in convoluted frames, none of which make any sense?

I woke up to a scene of me kissing Keith at a taco stand.  Not the Keith of today, but the Keith I knew over 50 years ago. I was 19 then.

There is this unfulfilled longing so deep inside me, I can’t explain it.

In my dream, before that, I’d been in a room, perhaps a hotel room. We had two rooms. Two keys. We, being my husband and I. There was a small girl and a boy with us.  The boy was older, a teen, I feel like I should know him. The girl, a small child, is it Tina? I’m not sure.  In any case, she’s in the other room alone. Why? I don’t know. Why wasn’t the boy in there and not her?

All of a sudden I felt my husband groping for me, wanting to make love, but there was someone else in the bed with us. It was my sister Sandy!  I push her out and him away insisting, “we can’t there are too many people in the room”. The boy is on a cot watching. Sandy is now at a desk writing, but facing us. He is writhing like an uncontrollable beast, I want him too and tell him we have another room.

I search for the key and the little girl, while he continues to urgently paw at me irritatingly oblivious to anyone else in the room. Something is nagging at my brain, I don’t know what. I try to get away.

Suddenly, I’m at this taco stand and Keith is there. It is small. He is dickering with the people there or perhaps just talking. He sees me and comes toward me as though he’d been expecting me. I kiss him and just look at him, then kiss him some more.  I want to keep kissing him. His breath and his face feel so good to me. The dimple in his smile lights me up like I remembered it.  He was so good to look at.

He gives me this shit eating grin of his and hands me a taco.  I take a bite. A carnita’s street taco. Yum! It’s good, then I continue to melt into him again, just kissing him.  I sense my sister,  like a conjoined twin, hanging nearby. Is the little girl there too?

He smugly asks, as if he is sure of the answer, “Are you coming?”

I continue to kiss him but momentarily pull back and sweetly say “No”.

He asks, “What do you want?”

I think for a moment and say, “I don’t know”.

Or, do I?

What do I want? What is missing?

But, I do know.  I think.

In my brain, I’m thinking “I want security.  I want to feel safe. I want to know you’ll be there for me. You can’t give me that.” But the words don’t come out.

I think of my husband, he’s like Keith.

But who’s the boy?

I’m guessing he’s my husband, who will forever be the little boy who will never grow up.

I know he loves me but I need more than passion. I need an illusive more.

I thought of Jesus’ self sacrificing love. Love that knew no bounds. Love til death.

Is that it? Do I want to know he’d die for me?

My sister Sandy? Growing up, she was my shadow, only 13 months younger and always in my way, yet me always feeling responsible for her.  Does she need me now?  She has her two boys, but does she need me and won’t say? I don’t know.

My husband keeps telling me I need to quit worrying about my siblings, they have other family members to care for them, just as I have my kids.  He knows my kids will care and look over me when the time comes. Hmmmm?

Dreams.  Who can understand them?