I can’t sleep. I spend most of my nights tossing and turning never able to close my eyes for anything more than an hour before waking up again. I spend most of my nights chasing my thoughts running myself in circles inside my head. When I go to bed I spend my night laying in bed staring at the ceiling until my alarm lets me know it’s time to start my day.

I clearly have a sleeping disorder, but the craziest thing about my sleeping problem is that I wake up from each nap remembering everything about my dream. Like this one dream I had where I was held up in my apartment fighting off a zombie apocalypse by myself. Or this other one I had where I bumped into the Biebs and we became best friends. Like we were inseparable.

My dreams are eclectic and tend to have no rhyme or reason to any of them, but there is this one dream that always reoccurs once a night when I close my eyes. It’s the dream I’ve come to cherish most. It’s the same dream I’ve had since I was sixteen years old. I always see myself smiling bigger than I’ve ever smiled before. I’m there in the kitchen cooking dinner for my family. There’s some kids sitting at the table waiting for me to finish the gravy on the stove so we could eat.

Each time I’m lost in that dream I see my wife, I haven’t made out her face just yet, but she’s there setting the table for us. I see kid’s toys scattered all over the place; it looks like we’re running a daycare. It’s a place that feels like home. The game I’ve always dreamt about. It’s been the one dream I’ve had that I’ve never wanted to wake up from. It’s a dream that I have always hoped to make my reality.

Living one day in a home, my home, with a family of my own that loves me as much as I love them. I think that once I find that special someone to make all my dreams come true, I’ll finally be able to sleep at night… a full night’s sleep.