Shook Me All Nite Long

TMI-Thursday? What the hell?

Now that it's Spring, I reminisce about when I moved to DC in the Spring of '06. Moving from a small, vacation town in OBX, DC was quite a change. Huge buildings that blocked the big sky I was used to, stores packed with people flying in every direction and many, many people jogging. I loved the activity. I loved the action. But I missed what I once called "home."

Then a curious thing started to happen. (This would be your chance to turn away. No seriously. OK, but don't say I didn't warn you.) I started having obscenely-filthy sex dreams. You can't even find stuff like that online! Anywhere! I didn't wake up excited, I woke up mortified/embarrassed/horrified and it stayed with me throughout the day.

Stuff was going on that I'm sure is illegal in every state and most countries, save The Netherlands and parts of Scandinavia (love ya!) If envisioned situations had actually occurred, I'd be phoning in this blog to someone outside the Federal Penitentiary System. (There is only one scene left in the dark recesses of my mind and that's too disturbing to put out in the universe via blogspot.com. Trust me.)

(Well, I thought I! was troubled until I read this book. I had to put it down before page 20. Wow. Now, very little of what I dream is. My sisters, you win hands! down!)

The encounters were startling but the fact I rarely have such dreams made the effect exponentially troublesome. My mind raced all day to find a reason for these new, now-almost-nightly visions. I took a second look at the buildings, the stores, the people, the joggers. Then something clicked.

DC's not OBX. People don't exercise cause it's fun. They exercise to work off stress. They jog so that tomorrow's log jam doesn't seem as miserable as today's. It's just a way to work off all that stress. Which I gathered I was under as well with a new job, new apartment, new city, new routines, etc. And though all those people were flying all over the stores, they did so in their individual bubbles. No one talking, no one interacting, no one venturing into anyone else's bubble.

A week of thinking and I distilled what I was seeing. It all came down to two points: Comfort and Connection. That's what I! needed. And the more I looked around, the more I saw people looking and longing for the same thing. I still see it daily.

Now, why the dreams took the form they did, I'm not wholly sure. They rocked the boat hard enough to get my mind thinking and that thinking has been with me from then on. For that I'm thankful. And the incredibly graphic, dirty, beyond-racy dreams stopped when I made my conclusion. It was a longing for comfort and connection. Just like everyone else's.