I’m no longer married, so I’m not sure that “going out on ‘date’ night with my ‘spouse’” applies exactly, but I still think it’s a good practice, so I had decided to carry it over into my new relationship.

We started off fairly well in achieving this. I set aside Tuesday evenings as “Tuesday Evening Date Night” and then moved it to Wednesday when we had a regular Tuesday evening commitment. That then was shunted to Friday evenings as Wednesday developed a regular activity elsewhere.

Then things went by the wayside. I’ve just gone through a very, very busy period of intense work and buying a house. I admit it slipped. I’m resolved to try to be better and to commit to making a time for this each week. I’m including an additional conditional too: it should involve leaving the house at least once a month. World of Warcraft and movies snuggled together on the couch are fine, but let’s add some variety too!

I woke up early the morning of the dream, realizing I was smack-dab in a dream about being in France and in the middle of a month-long “affair” with Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies. I remember that, in the dream, I was apparently staying at some kind of French auberge and the madame was very unhappy that I kept disappearing every night. That’s because I was spending every night down by the river, cuddling and being cherished by Steven. Yup.

I woke up, realized it was too early and went back to sleep, and continued the dream. I was still in my nice cherished, snuggly relationship, but I was apparently younger and living at home. The time had come for the band to move on and I was unhappy and unsure of what would happen next, because I didn’t want him to go. In the end, he left me a note which started off with, “Dearest [heart symbol]” in which he left me his orange, fluffy cat named Si�n and regretted his departure. My brother was threatening to tell my parents all about it, and then I woke up, still feeling cherished.

Now, I’m a pretty sensible, practical person overall. I’m not really prone to having such dreams and definitely not about married pop stars. The thing which most interested me about the dream was this strong feeling of being cherished. Days later, that powerful feeling of being completely enveloped, safe, and immersed in freely given love is still very strong to mind. The thing is, I have a wonderful sweetie myself, and I know that he does cherish me, but I haven’t been letting myself feel cherished. That’s right. You’ve read that correctly. I’ve been disbelieving and blocking the flow of incoming cherishicity [neo], because of disfunctional beliefs. Don’t take me as your example. Believe in yourself and in your relationship: feel free to let it be and to experience it. Accept incoming cherishicity.