By Anna Murphy
New York, NY, USA

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It's wedding season. And I don't mean season in the summer sense. Rather, I mean "season" in HBO's Game of Thrones terms - i.e., seasons that are years long. And it begins now, in my mid-to-late twenties, and will not cease until succeeded by that season that is life-long: Babies. 

I find this topic relevant to write about since within the last month alone, I have two weddings and a bridal shower under my belt. According to Facebook, the engagements keep happening in hoards, so the foreseeable forecast is not changing for the time being. And please believe me when I say I am not complaining. I love weddings, I think that there is nothing better than a close gathering of the people nearest and dearest to you to celebrate the best day of your life to-date. 

I was in the Virginia area recently for a family friend's wedding. I usually take the 4 a.m. train back to New York on Monday mornings after weekend visits. It gives me another night with my family, and it gets me to work in time. But it also greatly throws off my sleep schedule. That being said, I was able to squeeze in a catnap between my train's arrival and the start of my workday, during which I embarked on a dream that was not proportionate to the small amount of sleep I got. 

In my dream, I was getting ready for a wedding that was taking place on this huge acre of green that looked like a golf course - except it was right next to the ocean and a main highway. The onset of the dream was stressful because the wedding was way far downtown and I had no time to get ready, so I had to break into a friend's apartment to use her mirror, curling iron, etc. Cut to me being at the wedding where everyone was holding their places on the sprawling lawn with towels. I set down my white clutch in a place where I thought I would be able to find it again. When I went back, there was a sea of white clutches. At some point during the dream, I also lost my shoes. 

Shoeless and purseless, I was drawn to hippies in a stagecoach that had a velveteen ring cushion. When I tried to hold it, the velveteen turned to hair-thin cactus spines that stuck into my right palm. I panicked as the sky grew pitch black and began to storm. So with the rain pelting me and a million needle-like hairs in my hand, I ran into a street, weaving between gridlocked honking cars, to solace in the triangle junction of striped traffic lines. My boyfriend somehow found me there crying, drenched, barefoot and splinter-laden. I showed him my hand and he plucked out the spines.

And then, get this. He got down on one knee. In the pouring rain. And asked me to marry him with a ring identical to Bella Swan's in Twilight Breaking Dawn. I sobbed “Yes” and put on the ring (which at that point had morphed into five stacked rings on top of the Twilight oval). It slipped around because my finger was too wet and too small, but I went with it. And then suddenly the sun came out, I found my belongings and my mom, and we sat on my towel to wait for the ceremony to begin. And then I woke up. 

So not that I am a big believer in dreams having meanings, but if something in this jumps out at you that is obvious, please do let me know. I think for now, I'll chalk the strange chain of events up to the fact I own cacti, I love hippies, I am in the thralls of both wedding season AND beach season, the Twilight Breaking Dawn - Part 2 trailer just came out, the US Open just ended, and the weather in NYC has been completely unpredictable. I also lose things. A lot. 

I should also make it known that I promptly called my boyfriend and unsolicitedly told him that my ring finger size was 4.

 

All opinions expressed by Anna Murphy are solely her own and do not reflect the opinions of Stay Thirsty Media, Inc.