Half-Awake

The words in-between my dream last night and the coffee on my lap.

I feel weird and confused. You know when you wake up in the middle of a dream and suddenly you can’t tease out where the dream ends and reality begins? I’m stuck in the middle of this place in my head and my coffee in bed- trying to find the center. Kind of like balancing on one of those half blow-up ball things w/ coffee- half awake.

I know… I’m really cute in the morning.

I used to dream a lot. Vivid, weird dreams. At one point I was even working on a book about them because my dreams suddenly became an alternate universe I existed in and needed to sort out once awake. Freud talked about dreams as a means where your subconscious works out your desires and brings them to your conscious mind. Personally, it depends, sometimes I don’t feel the need to find meaning in my dream, but others are so strange and painful that I feel responsible to translate whatever message my brain is trying to send me.

My dream last night was about my ex.

We were at a Halloween party at what felt like a frat house that suddenly we had lived in (we never lived in a frat house, btw). I was dressed up as some character (pooh? idk.) and every person I ever went to school with was arriving at this party. As everyone (and I mean everyone) arrived, I cringed knowing that I wasn’t planning on staying. I had to go break up w/ my partner upstairs and leave this giant party at my own house. When I went upstairs to break it off, I was overcome with sadness, guilt, fear. I have this image of us stuck in my mind, standing in this dark, dirty, shoe-box sized room filled with solo cups. He stood there looking fabulous, and I was dressed as a pooh bear. He played the victim when confronted about his wrongdoing, and I fell into it. I went from angry and empowered, to suddenly feeling bottomless, with no courage- just sadness. I realize as I write this, that this was our pattern. The manipulation got the best of me, every time.

I forgive people WAY too much.

I give them a benefit of the doubt even when there are so many reasons not to. I’m working on that through processing and feeling my anger when someone does me dirty so I can kick them and/or their shitty behavior to the curb. But, when I am done- I am D O N E. And that’s what happened in this recent breakup. The breakup was through facetime, I asked him to leave while I packed, and I gathered my things and moved to another city without seeing him once. To be fair, he also told me about cheating on me at his work, hiding drugs behind my back, and lying for the last several years through facetime too. So, I just returned the favor- the least I could do.

I have no interest in seeing him. I have no interest in being in a room with someone who has caused me so much pain or that every time they speak I feel like I should have a lie detector on.

So this morning, as I woke up and left the room of that frat house and entered my parent's guest house, where I am now living, my emotions from the dream carried over.

Sadness. Guilt. Fear. Bottomless. No courage.

The good news is, like anything… it’s all temporary.

And if my brain is forcing me to dream about these things, I am hopeful it’s because we’re finally working out these rough patches- so we don’t find ourselves here again.