Dreams, Nostalgia, Happiness and Anger

Last night I had a dream about my grandparent's house.  Sort of.

I grew up only three miles from my paternal grandparent's house, and was very close to them.  I spent time at their house almost every day until I was a teenager and had teenagery things to do.  They were my second home, and I miss chatting in my grandma's kitchen or watching M*A*S*H with my grandpa pretty much every afternoon while I did homework.

My grandpa, uncles and dad, at home in the early 1950s.

My dad's milk barn as it is today. You can see my grandparent's
house in the distance.

In real life, my grandparent house has been sold a few times since they've passed, and not cared for at all.  My grandma's pretty yard is dust and to say the house is in disrepair is an understatement.  I can barely stand to drive past it in real life.  It breaks my heart to see it so.  But in my dream last night I was driving past their house and it was as it used to be, pretty yard and all.  There were dozens of people in the yard.  It seemed to be some kind of family gathering, just like our family had there in our day.  I had to stop and take it all in.  It was so nice to see the house sparkling white with it's quaint red shingle roof.  Even the little apple tree I used to climb was there again, complete with tire swing.  In my dream, I sat in my truck and watched this other family and felt happy.

My dad left his barn as if he was coming back.  Seeing this picture
makes me feel happy again.  <3

Suddenly, the people started yelling at me to leave, so I drove down the street to my dad's old milk barn, which really is at the other end of the block from my grandparent's house.  In the dream, there was a light on in the barn, and there should not have been because A: in real life it hasn't had electricity since my dad retired in the late 1990s and B: it's supposed to be locked up tight.  In my dream, I stopped.  I got out of my truck and climbed through the corral to one of the cow doors, which I jimmied open.  I walked in to the tank room where the light was and lo and behold, who was there but the one of my right now, real life elderly neighbors whom I just met in real life yesterday.  (So weird to see someone from my current life in that part of my past!)  She was trying to feed a can of tuna to three stray cats who were cowering in a corner.  In my dream, I said "What are you doing in here?  This is private property."  She turned around and tried to hug me.  She said "Oh, I'm so glad you are here!  I've been so worried about these cats.  I feed them every night.  They wouldn't know what to do without me."  In real life, my dad's barn is almost exactly as he left it the last night he milked cows there.  It's practically a shrine to my memories of all the comfortable hours I spent there with him. It really pissed me off to think this woman had been going in there every night to feed cats who were terrified of her, violating the space of my memories.  I was about to tell her so when I woke up. I realized I was angry, then felt let down.  Such nice nostalgia about my past, and then anger.  Twice.  That's no way to end a dream that started out with such happiness.