My sleep patterns were good and steady, until this past March when Dad died.

I sleep, but I don’t feel rested. My dreams are strange and harder to remember than usual. Always a vivid dreamer, it suddenly feels as though my subconscious is not working out its kinks as effectively as it has in the past.

Two nights ago, I had my first dream about Dad where it wasn’t post-funeral. I was traveling alone in a car that I don’t own -I think it was a silver 2009 Mustang- to the desert in Arizona (??- weird, as we have no connection to that place). He was alive, and Mom was there, too.

But there is no sound in my memories. I have the distinct impression we talked and he had something to convey to me, but I cannot hear it. When the visit was over, I had to fly home, but I realized this wouldn’t help me with my car situation, since I was driving… so without telling anyone, I drove home alone. I was met by a shadowy female figure on the road near home, who was sent to check on me. Her face is obscured but I think it was someone else who had passed, too.

I woke up feeling a palpable pain my chest, like I had been punched. The grief and missing were as keen as they have been since he died. This dream is like so many other things in my life right now- there is something just outside my reach, mostly invisible. I can sense but not actually reach it.

The very definition of distress and frustration, really.