“Go meet a nice Swedish boy!” my host mother called out to me. It was my second week in Sweden, I was twenty-three, and enjoying my stay. Officially I was there studying their health care system for my master’s project. In truth, I had just wanted to travel and have an adventure. “I’ll see what I can do,” I called back.
Three months earlier I’d had a dream. It was on Valentine’s night, after having a party with my single, and not the least bit bitter (OK, maybe a tiny bit) female friends who also did not have dates on this annual night of relationship-status reflection.
(Cue dream-land music) I was taking a bus (no one I knew took the bus in Los Angeles, but it’s a dream, so work with me here) to a night club. I walked in, and saw HIM. He was someone I felt I knew, and handsome, in a good-person way that makes you just want to smile. I was so happy that I immediately hugged him. He took my hand, and led me outside. In my journal (yes, I did write this down) I describe it as a French courtyard with cobblestones and window boxes with flowers. He leaned down and kissed me, one of the most romantic kisses I’d ever had.
I then looked up and saw three moons in the sky. “Wow!” I exclaimed, “Look at the moons!” as if three moons in the sky wasn’t that unusual.
When I woke up, I was smiling. I felt happy, hopeful.
Maybe the guy I’d just met at a dance club a few nights back was the one! That annoying voice in my head reminded me that the number he gave me, upon urgings from his friends, had been the wrong one. All four times I’d called it. And for some strange reason, he hadn’t called me either. I checked my message light just to be sure. Still not blinking.
I told a friend about the dream, and she said that three moons means three months. “Three months?” I whined, “I don’t want to wait that long. And anyway, I’ll be in Sweden.”
However, three months and two days after the dream, I was on my way to a pub with a new Swedish friend. She was bitter about a recent breakup (some things are universal I was learning) so we chose a place where she wouldn’t run into her ex.
