I have a recurring dream.  Or, my dreams have a recurring theme.

Every few weeks or so I dream that I’ve found myself unexpectedly and inexplicably back in the States, and I’m struggling.  My adversary might be my old, horrible job, or my crazy and threatening ex-husband, or the mounting stack of bills that I can’t–and apparently haven’t for some time been able to–pay.  Sometimes Lydia is with me and sometimes she’s not, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, the younger kids never are.

Olof and Sweden are always in these dreams, however, and always just out of my reach.  Whatever the particulars of the situation, what I want most is just to get back home but I can’t make it happen.  Sometimes I can’t remember our phone number (interestingly, it’s always our number from when we lived outside Stockholm that I need, not our current number), sometimes I know the number but nobody answers when I call, and sometimes, the worst times, I reach Olof but he won’t give me the money I would need to get back to Sweden.  And I’m stuck.  Hopelessly, helplessly stuck.

In my waking hours, I know that none of this would ever happen.  For one thing, numbers stick in my head like nobody’s business and I’ve no doubt that I’ll go to my grave remembering that phone number.  Also, whenever I go out of town even for one night, Olof calls me at least a half-dozen times, and is always especially keen to make sure that I’ve not missed my bus/train/plane back home.  I like to think that it’s not only to tend to the kids and dogs that he’s so eager for me to come back.

Still, I can’t pretend that these dreams aren’t part of why the idea of going back to the States is so nervous-making for me.  One thing is for damn sure:  when and if I ever do go back, I’m making sure Olof is along for the ride.  No sense taking chances.