Dreamy sort of thing
I don’t dream of him often. I don’t dream of him close to often enough. Some mornings, I wake up and I have this sense that he was here. It’s vague, something I feel more than remember, but it is unshakeable. And then I have to ask myself why I feel that way? It is usually then that the dream comes back to me.
It happened this morning, and as I lay in bed, I kept my eyes closed and tried to piece together the dream, and when I did, I had to smile. I’m not sure if it was a visit or a dream; in visits, we are usually alone, and in this one, there were other people watching us. Which was a little awkward, given what we were doing in the dream. ‘Nuff said. And usually when I feel like it’s been a visit, I know throughout the exchange that he’s dead, but I enjoy the moments we have together anyway; it’s like being paroled from material reality for awhile. I don’t recall being conscious that he wasn’t supposed to be here in the dream, but I also don’t recall being oblivious to that fact, either. It may well be that I am so used to him not being here now that there’s no expectation otherwise, that my subconscious no longer needs reminding of reality. Also, I remember visits in great detail and they’re usual very normal, mundane circumstances, in contrast to my my dreams, which are exceedingly surreal in general, and they are often nightmares. (I dreamed two nights ago that my boss was going to execute me and 3 other women from the office; we were all wearing wedding dresses. Mine was beige. We seemed to be convening in a Quaker meeting house. I wish I could say this was an unusual dream for me, but it’s not.)
But it matters not, because I am always glad to see him regardless, and in the space between him and me, everything was fine. It was better than fine. I was so pleased to see him, and he was his usual charming, funny self, and I was happy. Deep-in-my-soul happy, and just plain delighted we could be together for a little while.
After remembering the dream, I’ve revisited it on and off all day, because it was nice. Any time I can spend with him, even in dreams, I cherish. I know some people find dreams of their loved one extremely disturbing and painful, especially when they have to wake up from them to a harsher reality, but not me. I have been grateful for every single one.
What also stuck with me from the dream is that deep-in-my-soul happy, that pure delight, that emotional freedom that I don’t feel much of in the last 2 years. Don’t get me wrong; I have many moments of delight. All things considered, I haven’t much to complain about in this life, empirically, in this moment. But what I have not felt since he died is that carefree, unburdened, no-subtext happiness. Only an innocent can have that, it seems to me, and I lost that innocence the day he died and I learned that my heart and my world could be pulverized in the space of a single phone call and stay that way for a long, long time.
In my dream, I was happy in the way I was happy before death found us, took him, and left me behind. The human mind and body make no distinctions regarding the “realness” of emotions in the conscious state and the dream state; they are one and the same. So it seems my soul remembers that kind of joy, even if my thinking mind does not. And if it can, that means it must be real, and cannot be beyond my ability to recapture.
Now if I could just figure out how.
Man, I miss that delusional, innocent, full-body happiness I had before Charley died. I know exactly what you mean. I wait for the day when I might be able to feel that same sense of happiness again…but I wonder if it’ll ever be ABLE to happen again, as I’m no longer innocent. And as much as I hate to say it, I’m not sure I can ever be quite as happy again as long as I’m still single. I loved being married and sharing a life and parenting together and plain ol’ being IN LOVE–something I didn’t feel when I dated my friend last year; I cared about him and said/felt I loved him, but I knew I was never IN love with him…and I knew the difference–and I fear that there will always be something missing, and thus not a full happiness, as long as I’m alone. Which pisses me off, because gosh dang it all, it irks me that I *might* “need” a man to feel complete. But that’s a can of worms, to be sure.
I rarely had any good dreams about Charley the first two years after he died. I don’t recall if I had many nondescript dreams about him, but I had many nightmares–or at least I term them nightmares now. They were a blend of reality and nightmare territory where my subconscious tried desperately to find any possible alternate explanation, other than death, why he wasn’t here: workaholic, an affair, leaving me for another woman, witness protection program, some huge error after his accident. Take your pick: I had a nightmare/dream to cover every scenario, it seemed. And they were all awful dreams, some worse than others.
I’ve been dreaming about him a lot more than I used to, in the last few months. And it’s so very nice. They’re more mundane dreams, sometimes still nonsensical, but the agonizing pain isn’t there much or at all. And that’s an amazing change.
And I agree–if only I could “just figure out how” too.