I’ve been having bad dreams. Not nightmares, although I wake up feeling the same way as after a nightmare. My nightmares are actually like serial-killer movies, with intense and complicated plots and an ominous feeling of evil. They make me not breathe properly and wake up startled, too scared to move in my bed momentarily and then I realise it’s a nightmare and I breathe again and there is not actually a serial killer in my room listening for my breath so they can serially kill me. And I go back to sleep and usually the nightmare doesn’t come back that night. Unless it was just part 1 of a serial killer serial. I always wished I could remember the detail, because I feel like those nightmares have the kind of plots and suspense that could earn me some money. But I’m not into serial killers or writing movie scripts, and in the morning I can’t remember much but the feeling of the fear that if I move or breathe something will slit my throat.
So it’s not dreams like that. It’s dreams about him. And her. And us all being together as though we are mature adults moving on and have decided to hang out with our children at the park or in local holiday destinations and “be cool”. I can not look in the eyes of either of them in the dream, and in the last one there was someone else as well, someone with children who was part of their relationship too and I recall being surprised at his ability to be kind to those small children and to choose another person with children when he really only mostly likes his own. I don’t want to dream about them. There is no reason for them to haunt me. But like clever serial killers they are there, acting all “family unity” and stuff and I am bewildered and want to take my children away, but his children are there and they are so happy we are all together that even though I am bewildered I stay. And say nothing. And I cannot look directly at either of them.
My children woke me up in the middle of all of this last night. They don’t usually wake up the night often, so I was glad even though it was freezing and I didn’t want to get up to turn on lights and rescue the rabbit from weeing on the bed again. One must have called out and the other woke up, and there was a kerfuffle as I sorted them out. Then I crawled back into bed where the man who found me/the man who I have found wrapped me up in his warm arms. The safest, most precious feeling in the world. He makes my heart squeeze and although I am scared of what that means (not because of him, but because it would be hard not to be scared of the thing I have always wanted but been too scared to ask for, for fear it could not or would not be possible) I am safe and all is as it should be. And as I drift off to sleep they are back, and until I wake up again I cannot make them go away.
Is that what happens? I can’t remember. That when there is no space anymore they come in the cracks? Or can they only come in the cracks because there is space? I believe I have forgiven them, but that there is no reason for me to ever like them or want them in my life in any way. I think that is OK. I am not bitter or twisted but I like that there is an ugly photo of her on my computer. The masochist in me has not deleted it, even though I do not look at it anymore. I just know it’s there and once (about a year ago) the ugliness made me feel momentarily better. I think I am not bitter, but although I wish them luck, in my heart of hearts I do not believe it will end well and some part of me is glad about that. Because if it does end well and they are happy? The part of me that won’t delete the photo will remind the part of me that is so grateful they are gone that she wasn’t enough to do that.
I want the dreams to stop. Everything else (and I mean everything) is bit-by-bit falling into place and my life is this life that I dreamed of. But nowhere in that dream was there room to be dreaming about them. That is so NOT my dream. That’s like a nightmare. Fed by the cracks.
So this is healing the cracks. If you don’t talk about what scares you then it grows. I’m scared I will always dream of them, even wrapped in the arms of the man who found me/the man who I have found. I’m scared that my heart squeezing means it’s too hurt, and not that it’s coming back to life. I’m scared one day I will see them in the street and I not be able to look them in the eye and graciously thank them for my freedom (oh the times I have dreamed of that). I’m scared that the ugly photo defines my bitterness even though I am sure I am not bitter. The bitterness is sour on my tongue. And the hurt is heavy in my chest. Still. And I am scared that even though it is so much less than it was that it never goes away. Like ever. And the dreams are just to remind me not to get too excited about the possibility that it will one day it will not even be a thing. Even in my dreams.
