Dreamland

When we dream, our daily stuff is processed. Or yearly. Or from some decades ago. Yesterday night I got thrown back into my dreamland – the ugly horror type from the past. There was nothing bloody or scary or violent. But one little disturbing detail. I dreamed of sitting on a huge bed, and next to me was my father. His upper torso was naked, and his legs were covered in sheets. I remember it so clearly that I shudder. He was smiling, he was much younger, and we had a nice conversation. I have been asking him what he did to me – politely, trying not to disturb his good mood. I was asking if he could share what he remembers, because I had to reconstruct everything from foggy pieces and clues that my body gave me, as well as a strange ability of my brain to remember exact dates. He was smiling. He looked handsome. I liked him – I earned for his love. I hated this feeling when I woke up. But even more so, I hated the fact that he promised me to send everything. He said, he will write it all up, and will add sketches (!) so I can clearly see what he had done. We agreed on that. I woke up with a start. And I plunged into misery again.

Something has been a trigger. Did I see someone who reminded me of him? Not that I can think of. Was it having sex? Maybe. Was it because it was on December 1^st (I remembered my abuse last December, and I suspect the first time it started it was in December)? Probably that’s it. And more clues – yesterday my hip started hurting again – this time, my left. I thought I stretched it too much the night before, but the pain is different, close to the one I felt in my right hip. The PTSD type pain, the one that is not logical. I could barely walk, still feel it. Today I was overpowered by urges to cry and to hide – I thought this was all in the past. I guess it wasn’t. I’m again in my own dreamland – as ugly as it is, it is my past. And here is what I am going through right now – I feel like I have to be with someone who looks like me, to only love deeply someone who has similar features. I can love others, but it’s on the surface, lightweight, sweet, and not overwhelming. Now where did this BS come from? If I find myself with someone who doesn’t look like me, or, worse, looks exactly the opposite, I feel ugly. Not worthy. Not fitting. I get it now. I earned for my father’s love, and of course I looked like him – I was his daughter. But, wait, it’s worse – I earn for his love still! Oh, this is making me cry now. Great. Anniversaries are hard, I hear. Am I bound to never feel content?

Will this earning rule my life? My love? My ability for being with people regardless whether or not they remind me of him? I don’t know, and the absence of the answer is killing me. I don’t want it, I push it away. But should I? Is this part of who I am and should I accept it? I don’t know again. I am smack in the middle of a turbulence called “hiccup from the past – oh, you thought it was all over?”. If I look at it differently, by using as much logic as I can in this emotional state, if I do ever find someone resembling my father, would it be then slated for disaster simply because the projection of his image onto this person will be close to overwhelming? And, therefore, will pull the relationship into my dreamland, having nothing to do with reality? Will I be happy sitting on a heap of memories instead of living in the now? I hope not. If it takes me roughly 3 weeks to fall in love and 3 weeks to kill it, then how long will it take me to kill years and years of desperate love? Perhaps forever? How can I live with this pain knowing I can’t just go pick another dad in a mall, in time for Christmas? What if it never goes away? What if each time a trigger rekindles it, I will have to go through this all over again? Should I hide away from people, from love, from feeling connected, and hope that by abstinence I can sure this need? I know I won’t be able to, I know I can’t. I can only breathe through this, and keep going forward, keep loving what I have, enjoying the now, and looking the ugliness in the face, understanding that it’s only that – ugliness. And it will pass, just like everything else does. And the dream will pass, and new dreams will come. 

Photo by Kennedy Garrett.