“Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.”
-Michel de Montaigne
I've spent years trying to forget HIM.
Years....
many, many years.
I tried dating.
It didn't work. All I did was pull other people like him to me.
They'd look a little like him; they'd have his eyes, his stature, his hobbies.....
but they never had his voice, his deep thoughts, or his sincerity.
When I met a man his polar opposite,
the only one that didn't remind me of HIM.
I said 'yes' when he gave me a diamond ring.
That was a disaster.
I hate holidays.
They remind me of HIM.
I actually had to avoid our hometown because it always made my eyes water.
My friends and family were convinced that I was allergic to something in the air. I'd hear stories about how the foothills trapped the pollution in that city and made my eyes water and my nose run.
They didn't understand the truth.
It wasn't allergies.
My husband's aunt lived one block from his mother.
I hated driving by on Christmas Eve for fear of seeing him.
My friend lived across the street, I would cringe when he brought me over to visit with his family.
I stayed silent.
In 1987, I felt him in a building while walking down the street. I scurried away. The next day, he was standing outside of my apartment. I was too afraid to answer my door when the bell rang.
It was a scary part of town.
In 1991, they told me that I was dying. I wanted to thank him for being a friend when I needed one the most.
In 1996, as I stood at a bus stop in Lakewood, I swore I felt his presence. It lasted just a moment. I never waited at that bus stop again.
In 1998, my husband's cousin said she saw him in a supermarket. He asked about me and his wife slugged him for it. She had to call to tell me that he still loved me. Oooh and that didn't get the in-laws talking at all (please note the sarcasm).
In 2000, I swore I saw him behind me in a store. He has a distinctive walk. I shuffled away never to return to that store for several years.
Then things fell silent. I thought I was over him....finally.
One night in 2004, I fell asleep in tears. My husband and I had been fighting since 1997. I wanted to hold a job, he didn't want me to work. I could feel my financial plans falling to ruin. We started sleeping apart in 2001 but had reconciled in order to try again. I had moved our eldest into the basement apartment to seal the deal because there would be nowhere else for him to sleep.
He would fall asleep and ignore me.
There would be no goodnight kisses.
I had a health issue that needed to be addressed. We'd argue over it until I became too tired to advocate for myself. I needed to arrange transport to the hospital; he didn't want to help.
I was in pain. I was sobbing uncontrollably. Big tears flew from my brown eyes. I prayed.
"Does anyone in this world love me at all?" I asked.
I began to hallucinate.
A beautiful woman knelt over my bedside. She wore a golden dress and had a luminous veil around her being. She told me she was Diana and that she was the protector of women and children. If she were to help me I had to swear to help children and women.
Visions of a brown haired man filled my head. I had no clue who he was at all but the beautiful Goddess told me that he cared for me rather deeply.
She would not tell me who he was, I would know enough in due time.
She also said that to prove to me that she had visited she would leave me with emerald eyes. When I look into my own eyes, I will remember my promise to love my sisters and their children.
This was my initiation into paganism.
I awoke with green eyes that I have to this very day.
For eight years after, I dreamt of this man. We would walk and talk about his life, his job, his wife, his family, his charity and so on.
I had no clue who he was only that sleeping didn't hurt so bad anymore.
Then, I saw him get hurt in a dream. I panicked. I needed to know who he was.
I prayed again on the Winter Solstice and got my answer.
In this dream, he visits me at the house I live in now. We are talking about his life, his job, his family and his desire to help children. I look up and see that it is HIM.
I say his name and he seems shocked that I don't know who he is.
I awaken and wonder if the accident dreams would warrant contacting him.
I struggled with that for years. The dreams became more and more urgent as time went on, yet he has a common name. I could not find him.
He found me.
He visited with me.
I was unprepared for my reaction.
All those old feelings came back.
He looked exactly as he did in those dreams.
I warned him because I love him.
He shrugged it off.
He got hurt anyway. It was the same injury but it did not happen in the manner in which I saw.
I feel horrible.
I started to feel guilty about my marriage. If I dreamt of my husband as much as I dreamt of HIM, maybe my marriage would be better.
I hypnotized myself NOT to see HIS face in my dreams.
It didn't help my marriage. We still slept apart. He got fired from the city and the lawyers made up reasons that it was my fault: I've heard everything from having too much sex (not joking here), not diagnosing his medical conditions on my own, having an advanced degree that makes him unmotivated, needing to get a job and faking heart attacks (a reference to the chest pains I get from fibromyalgia) as being reasons why they fired him.
When I ran for mayor, I got an email from his former supervisor clearing up the real reason they fired him. He was obese and didn't fit in with the image of health the city is trying to promote. That's illegal. Now, he weighs 150 pounds more than he did the day they fired him.
I felt guilty.
I think guilt makes me act like a lunatic as it causes me to push people away in an effort to fix what cannot be fixed. I pushed my friend away. I've pushed many of my friends away. I feel that my pain is a black, toxic slime that can get on other people if they come near me.
I'm trying to cope with this by myself.
Now, I've been depressed as of late. I feel trapped here. Every time I find a way out, something stupid happens that keeps me here. He'll lose his job. His car will break down. He'll need help with something. He'll initiate a lawsuit. He'll run up the credit. He'll refuse to pay the bills and the lawyers will tell me to stay until after he files for bankruptcy.
He won't tell me what he's doing. I have to hear about it from other people; city lawyers, his lawyers, bill collectors....everyone else.
He wants me to stay. I can't figure out how I can do that. He won't cooperate with me. I want so very much to do right by everybody but, if we are not talking, I can't fathom how to do that.
Now, my credit is ruined. My business is ruined. My savings is gone. I'm scared to death. I'm a very goal oriented person, but now I don't know what I can do. I need some stability in my life. I need to leave but all the tools I had for leaving are gone.
I can't sleep. I try to meditate at night to find a solution. It is escaping me.
In those wee hours of the morning, around three or four, I will wake up and sob.
Now, I'm allergic to my own tears. You can always tell when I cry a lot because there will be rashes and dry skin all over my face. My tears are far too salty for my sensitive skin. Since I learned that he quit paying the bills, I've been in the house for eight weeks trying to hide my reddish face from everyone.
I feel incredibly isolated. Our phones aren't working. I can't afford to get more minutes for my cell phone. I don't know how long we'll have internet service or if it will be cut off.
He just started a darn good job. I have put a lot of things I loved aside to help him get and keep this job. I don't understand what he is doing.
This is a very confusing time for me. I feel trapped and have no idea what direction to take.
I can't afford to leave.
I can't stomach the thought of staying in a dead marriage to help him with the kids while none of my needs are going to be considered, much less met.
Sometimes I think about life insurance policies and kids who could have money for those things kids need. In those wee hours of the morning, when I am not quite awake, I think the unthinkable.
When the pain is so bad that I cannot breathe, I think the unthinkable.
Then I think of HIM, the faceless man in my dreams.
I finally realized why that happens.
When I was seventeen, my dad committed suicide. Dad had stage four lung cancer but didn't tell a soul. He waited until the day after Christmas to shoot himself. No one knew why he did it until an autopsy was performed.
My friend, the one in my dreams, listened to me cry. He knew how painful the loss of my dad was for me. He made me promise to never do anything so stupid as to commit suicide, no matter what.
He told me that there was always another way.
I thought Diana made me dream of HIM to help him. I understand now, it was to help me.
Maybe if I stop trying to push his face of out my brain, stop hypnotizing myself to forget our relationship, stop trying to deny my own past....maybe....maybe....I can stop obsessing about those dreams and missing my old friend.
Maybe I can be more of a friend to people in general instead of squirreling myself away when the pain comes back full force.
I owe HIM a debt of thanks. He's right, there is always a better way.
I'll find it.
Wishing HIM the best of everything no matter where he ends up,
With love,
S.
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