You Still Reach Into My Dreams

You Still Reach Into My Dreams

(Written 2014/06/04, not previously posted, edited 2024)

To: Elizabeth

You are the only one . . .

My dream, filled with strange imagery, shifts into a home.  The house is a muted combination of the two places where we had lived.  Like so many dreams about you, there is a hint of Christmas.  We are in this house out of some odd occurrence.  Our real lives are still true, both of us independent.  As always, your warmth and cheer reach out, letting me know this momentary encounter is not an inconvenience.  We are figuring out where I can temporarily store my things, when we enter into conversation…

You are the right person for me.  Our years were perhaps my most joyous.  Alone in my hermit hole I have learned a lot about myself.  I was not the right person for you, and I lament any pains I cause.

People frighten me.  In my desire to please and keep the peace, I push down, push away, and hide bits of myself, little by little.  I lose myself.  There is a person in me who wants to sing out, but holds it in for fear of upsetting or unsettling or changing the perspective of others about me.  I need time alone, not to be merely in another room, but to be truly alone.  I need that time every day.  I need time to bang on the piano mindlessly, like a little child who enjoys the cacophony, with no fear of ridicule or rejection, not that you would, but the fear that anyone would is an every present pressure.  I cannot stay with anyone for more then a few hours, and then I must run to my hole of solitude, where I can expand.

I think of how we met.  We were at our mutual friend’s party.  And where was I?  There I sat, alone in the den.  Party goers came and went through the kitchen with fleeting greetings.  But then you came in.  You came in, and your warmth filled the room.  You more than spoke, you came over to me, and sat beside me, and beamed your cheer right at me.

You, and only you, full with your warmth and bubble, were able to reach down into the abyss of my solitude and pull me up, and out.

The dream brakes and restarts, a Christmas tree in the mingled composite of our dwellings.  Then suddenly I am old and feeble, and small.  As if a Benjamin Button, I had shriveled into a tiny old man in a hospital bed.  Alex comes in and says there is a visitor.  It is you, age making you more angelic, rather than the raisin it had turned me into.  All I can do is weep.  You are the right person for me, providing the most joyous human connection I ever had.  It is so sad that I was not the right person for you.

What About the Blind Girl?

(Written 12/10/2013, not previously posted, edited 2024 and posted on Tumblr)

The dream started like most dreams do, wispy and vague. There is a gathering of a few people I know, though I cannot identify them. They present me with a horse, of sorts. The horse slowly morphs into a large dog, which we all take for a walk.

As we walk, I become more aware of the group, though I cannot see a face.  I feel comfortable with them.  These are more than merely friends or acquaintances, they are close companions, one of them extremely close, and yet shrouded in a dreamy veil.

I am told, in a rather soft and indirect manner, there is a new person in the group whom they all want me to meet.  The young lady is blind.  She is quite chipper.  The group and I, along with the blind girl, lead the dog with a long red leash as we walk along a low grassy hill in a populated area that feels oddly familiar.

The grassy open area morphs into the interior of a house I have never seen before.  I could not really see it in the dream.  I was aware of walls and rooms, but cannot describe the layout or color, other than to note there are several sets of stairs that have no banisters or railings.  The blind girl walks around the house with ease.

I ask her, “Are you counting?”  Indicating her ability to know where she is by the steps she takes.  She replies, “Yes.”  I am amazed at her ability to walk and talk, and yet keep count.  Suddenly we are all in an upper room.  The blind girl descends set of stairs that has no banister and no wall.  She loses her footing, and falls from sight.  There is a collective gasp.

I lunge toward the edge where she had fallen, and then quickly dash down the stairs, but the blind girl is gone.  There is no sense of urgency.  Instead, there is a feeling that everything is all right. Suddenly a table appears with my ex’s father sitting at it.  He calls his two grown sons to the table for a game of cards, and invites me to play with them.  His demeanor is firm, but not grim.  That was his way.

I place a coaster on the table, and he moves it.  He then notes the table itself, giving it a firm rap with his knuckles.  The bleached wood makes a solid knock sound.  “This is a strong table.  Good wood,” he says.  He grabs the corner and twists it using superman like strength, causing the corner to splinter but not break or detach.

With a spirit like movement, he floats toward me, getting close for a whispered conversation.  “I had a thing for one of my secretaries once,” he says.  I look at him shocked.  He questions me, “But if the house is burning?”

I reply, “Well, I would be the last out.  Everyone else goes first.  That’s my job.”

“Exactly,” he states, with a sense of pleasure in my reply.

While this conversation takes place, there is a sense the hosts within the house are in chit chat conversation.  Some are wondering about the blind girl, while others are talking about ‘her.’  The woman they indicate is my ex, the daughter of the overbearing figure who is questioning me.  I could feel my heart flutter and nervousness rise.

The father turns back toward the card table, and I turn around looking deeper into the house.  I see that I am in a well-adorned living room.  I wonder where the blind girl has gone.  Then I see a young lady whom I seem to know, in a dreamlike fashion.  I recognize her as a dear friend of my ex.  She is a tiny little thing of a woman, putting on her coat and preparing to leave.

She comes over to me and gives me a good-bye hug.  The hug is friendly, with an understanding.  I begin to choke up.  She and I slowly spin a quarter turn, and then the friend releases her grip. There in front of me is my ex.  She did not look anything like she really looks, except in the face.

She has a classic hourglass figure, and wears a gown of day-glow orange.  Despite the seemingly garish color, the gown is fashioned like Cinderella’s dress, and in the foggy muted nature of the dream, creates a glowing princess visage.  She comes to me, wrapping her arms around me.  I hug her, and we hold each other close.  She does not feel like her real self, the shape is all wrong, but it is she.  Her emotion, her personality, her warmth comes through loud and clear.

Like a figurine atop a music box, we began to turn in a slow, floating spin.  The emotions well up in me.  I fight hard to contain a wail.  My eyes water as I soak up the warmth of the embrace.  For a moment, from a third person perspective, I can see my ex turn her head and look at me, though I do not look at her.  She is smiling.  Knowing her happiness adds to the depth of my feeling.  It takes more effort to contain a weep of despair.

I concentrate on my breathing to hold back the emotional onslaught. In and out, breath after breath.

Dream becomes half dream, which becomes waking consciousness. I became aware of my actual, real life breathing.  The breathing of the dream in time with my real, deep, deliberate breaths.  Emotions crawl over me like a pet cat seeking rest.

I fight back tears.

Lonely Because

(2024/02/12)

I am not lonely because I was not loved,

But because I was loved.

I am not lonely because I never loved,

But because I love,

And I threw it all away.

Unforeseen

The greatest hurt…

That I am no longer allowed to tell you, I love you.

2024/02/27

No Undo, No Do Overs

2024/02/18

Life is not like a software program, it also is not a game.  There is no Undo button, and Do Overs.

I have fought my way through andropause, the midlife crisis.  I am now on the downhill slope, the inevitability of mortality squarely in front of me.  They say you should not have any regrets.  I cannot help feeling that I do have one major regret, though I also know I do not.

On one hand, I regret leaving her.  I have returned to my former self.  Life is calmer.  I understand I need space to recharge my social batteries.  I now know what it would take to live with someone and keep peace with her, and myself.  I have not found a companion, perhaps because everyone is gauged against my ex, but mostly because my introversion makes meeting people extremely difficult.  The chance that another Elizabeth, full of cheer and exuberance, will plunk herself down beside me is very unlikely.  Lightening does strike more than once in the same place but only at the highest points, not in the lowest valleys.

I regret that I let go of that love.  I have learned what we had was indeed love, the way we all think it should be.  Feelings so deep they cling to you with an unshakeable static.

On the other hand, in a frightfully human and dissonant way, I also do not regret leaving her.  I left for the right reason.  I have calmed down, my hormones settled and my former self lives anew, but I am still not the right person for her.  I am still that cowboy in jeans who enjoys box lunches, and she is still that princess in flowing gowns who enjoys high tea.

Some would argue, ‘Learn new things.  Take a chance.  Go get you some.’  Though I must recognize, it has been many years.  While I have surfed the rough waters of my own self, she has also climbed her own mountain.  My love for her has not faded, but what of her love?  Though she has sent small kindnesses my way, she has every right to be bitter.  If not bitter, totally void.  Early on, she asked me to respect boundaries, which I have.  That is why Santa is a bit secret.  I have learned that many people survive breakups by executing clean cuts – no hatred, no malice; the other person simply becomes all but nonexistent.

It would be rude and inappropriate for me to ‘take a chance’, as I respect the boundaries, and I am still the wrong person for her.  But I will never let go of the love.

“It hurts every day, the absence of someone who was once there.”

— Marie Lu, Champion