I wish looking into the future gave me that same rush it used to. Now I just feel tired before I've even gotten out of bed in the morning. I have this recurring dream. It's always somewhere that everyone I love is and I can feel the warmth. Friends, gone and current, a man that loves me... Sometimes I see the little boy and girl I want to have so badly, listening to them chattering, seeing their faces light up with the personality I know they would have. In the dream, it's less of pictures, more of senses. I feel myself smiling, I feel the peace, the roots I want to plant. Everything is right again.
Then that moment comes when sleep begins to ebb, light comes in from the morning and my conscience tries to pull me into wakefulness. The dread starts as I know the dream fades into an old grey morning, but every once in a while, on a lucky day before my alarm goes off, I can will myself back into the dream, back into tortured bliss. Those are the hardest mornings. When I finally can fight no longer and the day won't be refused, reality crashes in a little harder. I slowly open my eyes, knowing the vision is gone, and I'm left remembering what I thought was once on the verge of being true, only to be crudely met with another day to survive. I lay listening to my alarm sound over and over again, feeling no real urge to turn it off. My thoughts tumble and collide and I pray silently that day will somehow be the day of rescue. This morning was one of those mornings. Actually, the last few mornings have been those mornings.
All that comes back to the point: I wish I had more courage. I wish challenges posed chances rather than more to struggle through. To be honest, I'm just tired. I tired of surviving. For a brief moment, I felt on top of the world, I thought every dream was possible. I had survived so much to get there. Abuse I've never mentioned, a divorce that left a huge scar, mistakes I wish I could erase all together. So many messages to overcome and finally, I looked around one day and I thought: look how blessed I am. I remembered to thank God, to treasure those moments, to feel the preciousness of love, family, friends and opportunity. I reveled in gifts from heaven such as school, friendship, Paris, family and a love I was convinced was invincible. I remember so clearly, standing in my apartment, looking around, awe in my heart, humbled, knowing I had been brought through so much, and how grateful I was. I knew I still had work to do, but I never forgot to be so thankful.
Then with a sort of effortless perfection, everything fell apart. One by one, everything broke down. I found myself grasping at straws, wondering where it all went. I lost friends I had loved deeply, my parents separated, school finished and I uprooted, chasing the tail end of a love I didn't know would end.
It took so much energy to start over once. I was already tired from life, but I fought through. I started again, reaching for more, surprisingly, I found it, but now I know how fragile it all is and I'm more exhausted than ever. I worked so hard to leave the baggage behind once, now it feels as though I know where ever I go, the baggage is apart of my soul I'll never be able to leave behind. I would give anything to have the belief everything will be okay, but I believed that once, started over and found out how shallow that belief can really be. Every dream I've had has shattered, and now, the only hope I have is to settle for the miracle of praying I will get over a love that I won't seem to let go of me. I'm researching plane tickets, jobs and roommates thousands of miles away just so I don't have to remember what I lost. My best shot at happiness seems to be starting all over, and yet I find myself fighting to get out of bed in the morning. I'm struggling to get back to normal, knowing the only real hope of that happening is uprooting again, but this time without the strength of youthful optimism. Instead, I have a tear-stained journal, beat-up luggage and soul weary frown lines etched into my brow.
Don't tell anyone (mostly because no one reads this), but I keep an unread email from my ex in my inbox. I can't bring myself to read it. I know when I do, when I finish it and erase it, it will be one more goodbye. For some reason, knowing its there, but not knowing what it says, it helps me find the flight to DC for the interview I have next week, or the next day and the move I know I have to make. I know it's dumb, I know it says something stupid and silly and probably says something about how I need to move on again, how he's sorry for what he put me through and knows I'll be fine, how I'll meet someone amazing, or it something about how he's doing well and hopes I am too... everything nice and polite and appropriate. But I can't read it. I just don't have the heart. I prefer not knowing, but not letting it go either. So it just sits in my inbox, a '1' lit up on my mail app. I would rather pretend I don't care... even if it is pretend.
My split personality takes over, the wisdom saying that's why I need to leave. I can feel my head dragging my heart into the future. The right brain knowing I have no choice, and though my heart doesn't feel like letting go, my body has to. Wisdom works overtime to remind me why everything will be fine and I need to work toward a future I can't see yet, while my heart just wants to cry. In the mornings, I give into my heart, knowing if I bottle everything, I'll blow and never make it through. During the day I listen to my head, putting one foot in front of the other, making all the "right" decisions. I think about where I want to go, what I want to do, what is the best for me. I do my best to shut out the pain, the memories, the fear. But when I get home, strip off the day, hear to the rain outside, my heart takes over again and I feel the days struggles boil over in the form of tears.
No matter how tired I am, life won't live itself. All the wishing and hurt in the world won't change what my reality is, and the only thing that will is my ability to put one foot in front of the other and start all over. The dream always ends, daylight always wins, and I may not be the most courageous person in the world, but I do know nothing ever changes unless I move forward. I once thought every love song was true, now maybe I can find out what it means when the songs about hope are true.
So while I ponder whether to move here or there, east or south, I listen to Amos Lee and become silent. Sometimes when the soul can't seem to take much, when staring out the window at the rain, trying to let the drops wash more away than just the grime from the sill; holed up in a chair that isn't deep enough to swallow you; chaos is more familiar than peace; time cruelly ticks by reminding you tomorrow is inevitable and yesterday is just a memory; and grey is the only color you want to see... it's good to let colors fade.
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