Guest Post: Following dreams

I dreamed of you last night.

I woke up shortly before I had fallen asleep, looked at the time: it was 1 o’clock. And the dream came back to me. I was so sleepy I knew I will not remember much in the morning, only glimpses of a dream that woke me up, made me feel sad and bad. I think it was my brain telling me to let go while my heart was asleep and couldn’t react.

We were in your house, I knew it was yours even if I couldn’t put two words together to describe how it looked; it was that feeling I was having that you belonged there, surrounded by people I couldn’t see, by family, part of your world and part of your universe, your future.

I didn’t belong.

It was like I was there, but somehow didn’t fit, envious of those around you I couldn’t see or describe, but knew that they felt comfortable with their permanent place in your life. No room for me and I was not surprised, just sad and maybe a little angry.

You held my hand and I felt strange, like we were rehearsing a closeness I so wished to feel but somehow knew it was forced and fake. I was looking at our hands touching, smiling, wishing it was real and natural, wondering if you took my hand or I took yours, wanting to feel joy from that feeling of closeness that somehow was out of reach for me, forbidden somehow. And then we were saying good bye without words. Distance and space was coming between us like a wall rising solid and cold, the mood was changing and there was no room for us in your world.

You smiled at me and gave me a string of photos, joined together like the ones that come out of a photo booth. Black and white images of you and me, captures of moments of pure joy, memories on paper. We were smiling, natural, into each other, so captivated like the world was a void around us and we didn’t care. We were so beautiful I was amazed and speechless. Those photos took my breath away and while looking at them, I somehow felt they were not real, I didn’t remember those moments, us taking pictures, but I knew the feelings they were surfacing in me.

You looked at me and said you hoped that they will remind me of you, of us, forever a beautiful memory. And your voice was telling me without words that you will never be mine again, that probably you never were and that, somehow, on some level, we were both sorry about that.