Rejection is painful.

It comes in many forms. Being let go from a job. A friend ghosting you. It can even haunt your dreams.

So I woke up this morning at around 4:30 am, a full hour before my alarm was set to go off. I was “pissed”. I looked over at my sleeping wife and wanted to punch her in the nuts. Yes, she lacks that particular part of human anatomy, but you get the idea. She had just “dumped me” in my dream.

Upon being more coherent of just how early and dark everything was, the rational side of my (*squirrel!) started interjecting on my emotional self. I rolled over onto my back thinking I could focus on what had just happened when the urge to relieve my bladder making itself known.

I stumble up out of bed, wood and all, and make my way into the bathroom. I know women probably have it worse when it comes to biological issues but trying to pee into a toilet while at attention really sucks. I manage to sit my ass down and lean forward so that I’m almost touching the ground with my face so that my soldier is able to deflect its flow downward and into the bowl. It’s not comfortable by any means and borders on being painful. Compared to bleeding out of your crotch for a week every month, its a small price to pay.

Finished, I head back into bed. No sooner than I slide back in and onto my back again does, not one, but two cats pounce on me hoping to get some attention. I start petting them and doing some more reflecting on my dream as the two knuckleheads begin trying to abscond with the hand that is petting the other thinking they can each get double the attention.

Idiots.

As I start recalling more of my dream, I begin placing the various parts of it back together and as to why it stung so much. Back in high school, I dated a girl for two years, I will call her Lenna. The house that my wife and I shared in my dream was reminiscent of Lenna’s parent’s house. Even today, as I’m 30 years past that event, I still have an emotional connection to that house. What was even wilder, was that my wife and I were on a trampoline in the backyard. One that, upon further reflection, was similar to the one Lenna chose to break up with me upon at a mutual friend’s house.

So who’s the idiot now? Apparently me. Yeah, I know you can’t control your dreams but the emotions I felt were so vivid and raw. I tried pondering why my subconscious mind would screw me over with a dream like that and the only thing I could come up with was that I might be (hormonally?) unbalanced right now.

Hey ladies, you can keep that bleeding emotional unbalanced stuff, I really don’t mind leaning forward to deflect my pee.