Dreams That Break You

Lost love that kept me frozen

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Long ago, I had a dream of my ex-fiancée that lasted mere seconds. She had left our long-distance relationship years prior for a local man to help accelerate her life. She also needed to heal some parts of herself that was never adequately shared with me. Until that point, we had built an unforgettable shared experience and were in intense, youthful love despite the distance.

After the engagement was broken, she would rotate through cycles of kindness, unwitting abuse, and direct emotional abuse as we struggled to salvage a friendship. It wasn’t always bad. She treated me well during my military deployment about two years afterwards, but I suspect she was going through problems and needed companionship.

I mirrored back whichever treatment I received while being unable to process being treated and judged so differently. We had chatted almost daily as close friends for over half a year before the relationship, after all. Hearing genuine encouragement at times, yet not being good enough to stay with despite my complete efforts dedicated to make the relationship work. Love isn’t transactional, but she was the one who pushed for marriage and the initial relationship itself. My soul simply could not reconcile being treated so differently and being denied personal closure has left me unwell.

Hope kept us in contact for years, but we often treated each other unacceptably. Our former selves as speechless witnesses forever in shame of the aftermath. I’m still disgusted by speaking the words that manifested to protect myself from wrenching grief while forced to move on alone in deep isolation.

“I thought you would be okay,” she said while holding me warmly and consoling me to move on.

“How could you possibly think I’d be okay?”

Before any reply, I startled awake from the existential sadness and immense loss swelling inside me, already crying.

Rarely have I glimpsed the same person since her departure. Most times when that did happen, she quickly vanished abandoning me to yet another nauseating cycle of joy and loss. Neither have I seen that better version of myself. Those blooming qualities of mine that could no longer be expressed to the world forcefully withered away so I could survive.

Restoring those parts, building emotional intelligence, and respecting myself more are my long-term goals over the next years. Otherwise, finding my home and establishing that authentic sense of belonging again will never happen. I’m deserving of both. After all, this dream was me borrowing her voice and likeness to tell myself to move on.