The laughter woke me

I don’t think I’ve slept through the night since Paul died. I’ve become a very light sleeper and am woken easily by common household sounds or by a dream that just seems all too real.

Being woken by dreams is far worse than being woken by noises because the dreams are normally bad and I wake up in a terrible fright, or they are surreal and I wake up confused or worried about some strange symbolism.

Last night was different though. Last night I was having a slightly surreal dream where I’d just moved into a new house and was excitedly decorating the interior. Then one of the new neighbours stopped by to start complaining about the way I’d displayed the house number and about some of my flower choices in the front garden.

All of a sudden it dawned on me that I was living in one of those terrible communities that have covenants!!

I explained to this new neighbour that I hadn’t realised that was the case and he was very disgusted by the thought that I wouldn’t want my house to look exactly like all of the other houses.

Well, that got me thinking out loud about all of the lovely things I wanted to do to the house and that I was certain I’d be able to get a waiver or community approval for some of my fantastic ideas. And as I continued I could see the look on this horrible man’s face turn to fear. So I kept making my ideas more outrageous which got me giggling.

At some point in the dream, everyone but this man was giggling which got me giggling so much that I actually woke up laughing. Yes, my laughter in my dream woke me up!

It was weird because I’ve never woken up laughing before. Crying, shouting, and screaming – yes. But laughing? That’s a new one. But I suppose if you’re going to have a restless night, you may as well laugh about it!!