Nate had a bad dream this morning.

I get up early….and it’s usually pretty quiet at the house when I’m the only one up.

Nate got up early this morning.

I was in the bathroom…and when he came out of his room, he came in with me and sat down next to the potty on the stool he uses to reach the sink when he brushes his teeth.

“I had a bad dream. There were all these kids acting weird.”

He was pretty scared and didn’t want to go back to sleep, so we talked about dreams for a little while and then went out and started a Lego movie on Netflix.

When I asked him if he wanted to go back to sleep, before we’d started the movie….but after I realized that Nate was up early with me for the morning…he told me that he didn’t want to sleep…that he was “afraid he’d have a bad dream”.

( He just came into the room I’m writing this in, pulled his shirt off, and said that it didn’t go with his pajama bottoms….”I DON’T LIKE THIS SHIRT!!!”…. “I don’t want to wear this shirt…” me: “Well, why don’t you just wear it for a while until we can find some other clothes for you to put on?  It’s kind of chilly and I don’t know where your other clothes are.  Why don’t you wear that for a while?” Nate, bare-chested at this point: “I DON’T WANT  TO WEAR THAT SHIRT!!! I DON’T LIKE THAT SHIRT!! I DON’T WANT TO WEAR THAT SHIRT!!!”)

It is never as quiet in the morning when Nate is up with me.

We got home from Asheville about 7:30 last night, but it was dark by then and because Nate had fallen asleep in the car, we just changed him into some pajama bottoms while he was sleeping,  and left his “go outside” shirt on.

So, of course, the shirt wouldn’t be the right one for sleeping in…or for waking up in, either.

So that’s what was going on with the shirt.

Nate and I are both up now.

I was thinking about what he said about not wanting to go back to sleep because he was afraid he’d have a bad dream.

I was thinking about that…and wondering if I could twist it a little…just a little “twerk”…and turn it into a blog topic.

But what would you say if you were going to write about a 4-year-old getting up early after a scary dream? How could you write about that?

I was thinking about not wanting to sleep because the possibility of having a bad dream existed.

Then I started thinking about starting anything… and what a shame it would be if I…and I’m talking about me again…didn’t start something because I was nervous about getting the “dream” right.

What if I didn’t start trying to create a good reality for myself and my family because I was worried that I couldn’t get the vision for my life quite “right” in my head first.

What if I spent so much time trying to “twerk” the vision that I never felt confident enough to implement “phase 2” of my endless planning?

What if I never kicked it over into “action land” because I was afraid I’d make a “bad dream”?

I had a friend whose father told him, “Do something…even if it’s wrong.”

Maybe that’s the secret. Don’t get so caught up in the dream that it only comes around when you’re sleeping? Or maybe…don’t sleep all the time because you’re trying to figure the dream out?

I don’t understand dreams all that often.

Maybe we should just turn on another Lego movie and forget the dream completely for a while?

Maybe having your own “bad” dream is better than trying to live someone else’s dream?