Adopting Taryn

I had a very vivid dream this morning, just before I woke up. It was set in a somewhat familiar city, like I had been there before. Except I'm sure that I had never been there before.

I was on a trolley type bus and wound up sitting next to this high school girl. She was using soft pastels to draw this really cool green and gold dragon. We started talking, and I asked her a question. It took a couple of moments for her to figure out her response, and while she was working on it, I reached my stop. She jumped off the bus after me to give me her answer, and then ran around the bus to jump back on. She had apparently done it before, but the driver wouldn't let her back on without charging her bus pass again. When the pass didn't work, the driver kicked her off the bus. She grabbed her things and walked slowly toward the marketplace that I was standing in, not sure what to do. I saw what happened, and approached her again. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she can only use her student bus pass to get to and from school, and only once per bus in each direction. I pulled out my wallet and gave her the money to get on the bus again, so that she could ride the next one home. I asked her if she needed to call and let someone know that she was going to be late, and she said that there was no one to call. This bothered me a little, but I wasn't too concerned. After all, she was old enough to get herself home safely. I walked into the marketplace and bought myself some cheese fries. I asked her if she would like a plate of them, and her eyes lit up. As we talked, she let little things slip, like how it didn't matter what time she got home, and how she was responsible for whatever she had for dinner in the evenings. As we talked, she began to trust me. We got something to drink at another one of the little stands, and began to walk toward where I lived. As she saw the house, her eyes became really big. She asked, "Do you live there all by yourself, or do others live there too? It's such a big house!" I told her that I lived there with my husband, but that we had no children. It was then that she asked me if she could stay with me. She told me about how she had been living on the streets, begging for money late at night. She used the money she received to buy her bus passes, to wash her school uniforms, and to buy a little bit of food. I asked her a few more questions about why she was on the street, and found out that she had lost her father as a little girl, and mother had substance abuse problems which caused her to become violent. The state had taken her and placed her into foster care, which is how she found herself in the school she was in. She had run away from the foster home after another abusive situation had arisen. I told her that we could go and get her things that she had stashed behind some bricks in a wall in an alley. After we picked up her things, she came home with me and was incredibly awed by how nice my home was. I set her up in one of the guest rooms, and told her that it would be her room as long as she stayed with us. When my husband got home, I told him how I had taken in this young girl and told her that she would have a home with us as long as she needed it. He was very upset that I hadn't consulted him about it, but when I pointed out how much danger she was in by living on the street, I convinced him to let her stay at least for the night. I was certain that I had made the right decision. He wasn't so sure. When we woke up the next morning, she had made us breakfast as a thank you for letting her stay. She had already showered and gotten herself ready for school. When she looked at us, you could see the question in her eyes, wondering if we were going to let her continue to stay with us or throw her out. I told her that this was her home now and that I would look forward to seeing her when we all got home. I asked what time school let out so that I could make sure that one of us was home to let her in the door when she got there. Then she left for school.

That is the point where I woke up. I'm not sure what it means, but I've had several dreams where I've adopted teenage girls in the last few days, so I'm sure there is a meaning, I just don't know what yet.