Dreaming about the trip.

I'm not a person who can remember dreams normally. I mean sometimes I can wake up and remember something about a dream, but more often than not I don't even know if I did have a dream. Sometimes my dreams are so jumbled up that even if I do remember something I cannot put it together and figure out what the heck I must have been thinking. That's why when I awoke twice in the last couple of months fully remembering my dream and feeling like I was living them, was strange.

See, the first one was about a month or so back. I awoke with the feeling that Tony wouldn't be there. It kind of surprised me to awaken to find that I was in my own bed, and Tony was snoring away beside me. In that dream, my Mom, Jon and I were getting ready to leave for the trip, but we couldn't find Tony. As we got the van all packed, I was searching around thinking that he must be off doing some last minute job around the house. I looked all over, but couldn't find him. That's when I looked at my phone and saw that I had a message from him and I listened to it. In the normal "Tony" fashion, he was talking just like he always does when I get a voicemail from him. Then he ends the message with "I flew to St. Louis and I am getting started on my way to Springfield." I was shocked! How could he leave ahead of us and be headed out like nothing was wrong ALL BY HIMSELF! That's when I ran to the van and told mom what had happened and we jumped in the car to race to St. Louis. Well, we made it to St. Louis, but Tony was in Springfield. We then drove to Springfield the next day and Tony was in Tulsa. I couldn't believe he wasn't waiting for us, because I kept calling him telling him to slow down and wait for us, and kept asking him why he had rented a car and started out ahead of us, but he wouldn't answer me. The last thing I remember before I woke up was talking to Jon before we went to sleep and telling him that we were going to catch up with Dad.

Then, just a couple of days ago, I woke up from another dream about the trip. This time in my dream we were driving along on the way to St. Louis, when we realized Mom wasn't with us! We couldn't believe we forgot her, and Jon was really upset that he had forgotten her, too. We made it to town and called Mom to apologize and tell her that we would make it up to her. We told her to get in the car and drive to Memphis and we would pick her up there. Then we realized we weren't in the van, we were in a car, and all of our things were in the van, so we didn't have our books, maps or any of our luggage. The last thing I remember from that dream was being nervous about having to go pick up Mom and the van and thinking we were going to fall so far behind that we would not get to see anything along the way because we would have to catch up to our plan. Then I woke up thinking what in the world could these dreams mean??

So, I told Tony, Mom and my sister about my dreams, and they all say the same thing. I have become so obsessed about planning out this trip, that deep down I am so afraid something won't go right. Well, yeah, that's true. I mean I have planned out where we will stop, how we will get from point a to point b and what things we might see along each stop. Three weeks, when you think about it, seems like a really long time, but to cover roughly 5,000 miles round trip doesn't just happen if you jump in the car and "go with the flow". Maybe I am afraid we will lose someone along the way. How in this world would that happen when there are only 4 of us in the car? I don't know, maybe it is the fear that we will become lost, but how can that happen in this day and age of GPS' and Smartphones? Maybe it is just the fear that we will fall behind time wise. That could easily happen, honestly. I mean there is so much to see and do and so many interesting people and places to visit. The one thing I can see with this trip is that we won't have time to do everything. I came to that realization in the beginning of the planning process.

I guess in the end, the one thing I really need to learn is how to relax. I guess this kind of trip is not really the best to try to force myself to learn that, but I just need to set my mind to just appreciate this time with the ones I love and make memories, whether they are good, bad, or just plain crazy. It doesn't really matter in the end if we make it to the hotel too quick one day, or if we drag ourselves in just in time to go to bed. It matters more that everyone gets in the car and bond, of course the getting everyone in the car may be the more important of the two, haha.

43 Days...

Also, PLEASE COMMENT! I would love to see who is reading this. :)