Anxiety Dream

Last night I dreamed that I was on the run from some sort of unexplained danger, shepherding the kids through an abandoned industrial center—like a waste-treatment plant or something. Lots of big vats and steel grating and catwalks and stuff.

Somewhere along the way, I lost track of Robin. I hunted and called for him frantically, and finally I caught a glimpse of him cowering in a crawlspace. In the space of minutes his hair had grown long and shaggy and covered his face. He cringed and snapped at me when I reached for him. And I remembered, then, something that in the dream I had always known: when boys grow up, they become savage, hairy, feral beasts. The dream-logic presented it as just a fact of nature, unavoidable, inalterable.

And I just started crying, “no, not my sweet Robin, not yet, it’s too soon! He still has baby teeth!” And then I woke up.

I think my subconscious is anticipating some issues with the teenage years.


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