Dreams are interesting things. And I’m no expert, but in my experience, sometimes they seem insignificant and sometimes they mean the world. But they happen in our minds, so are almost always guaranteed to be a reflection of our mind. That’s why this game had me all over the place. I’ll just cut straight to it.
1 May 2021, 6:18 PM
It’s just after 6 PM and I just woke up from a nap. I had a dream. In my dream, my girlfriend had gone to my flat ahead of me returning from work (she had a spare key). At some point just before I returned, my uncle, Acho, had visited the house to pick something up and I arrived to find them both deep in conversation. She was obviously very familiar with my family, and Acho is a mentor figure to almost everyone I know, so I surmised it was a pretty important conversation, announced my arrival, said hello and sat in the next room while they rounded up the conversation. I just got on with some paperwork I had to do for something. Their conversation lasted a while and he eventually popped his head in to tell me he was off and left. I quickly rounded up what I was doing and turned around to go join my beautiful girlfriend. Before I could exit the room, she walked past the door, towards the exit, and clearly in a mood.
I caught up with her, calling her name and asking why she was upset. She turns around and says something about me not joining them in the living room and instead continuing with work despite only just returning from work. I explained my decision and she agreed with my thought process but she would have preferred I at least tried coming in and then giving them space only AFTER being asked to or noticing I was actively interrupting their conversation. “It would have been the polite thing to do”. A small argument continued on as we went back-and-forth over what I should have done vs what I did do until we mutually agreed none of it mattered and the real problem was that I had made her feel ignored.
She began crying partly because I’d upset her but also because she was never the kind of person to get so upset over the passive actions of someone else. She had always been a very independent and strong minded person but had slowly become attached and relatively dependent on me. Something she acknowledged was by no means wrong, just very unfamiliar and out of her control. I related so deeply with every word she said because I felt exactly the same. I held her in my arms as she cried into my chest, neither of us having to utter a word but fully understanding what each other were thinking. He had spoken about this same topic before at length. We finally walk away from the front door where we’d been stood since she initially tried to leave the flat, and walked into the bedroom. She put her things down, took off her boots and coat and we sat in bed in each other’s arms talking through everything that just happened, how we both felt and how we intended to move forward. The conversation ran its course and we were soon laughing at each other’s jokes and just enjoying each other’s presence. We ended up having a romantic evening together, ordered some takeaway and before we knew it, it was fairly late. I offered to drop her off at work next morning so she could just stay over and stay and get enough rest.
And at this point I woke up from my nap.
It was a beautiful yet random dream about what was essentially just a regular day. Or at least it should have been. I pondered on the dream for a while until tears began rolling down my cheeks. The more I thought about it, the more I cried.
The dream was beautiful because it depicted some very big blessings hidden as mundane elements. I was working in a career I enjoyed that kept me self-sufficient enough to afford a very nice flat my own (something I always dream I’d eventually have once upon a time); I was still very close to my amazing uncle even though we no longer lived together and he was still the amazing influence on everyone around him that he is in reality today; and I was in a loving relationship with a very beautiful, intellectually mature and self-aware woman.
The dream was random because there was so much in it that I couldn’t explain. Though I know I loved my job, I can’t think of anything in my real life that I love enough to work a regular 9-to-5 job for, and as an employee for someone else no less. I lived in a flat I absolutely do not recognise from anything in reality and have no frame of reference for why it looked the way it did. And I have never seen the face of the woman I was in a relationship with or anyone that looked similar enough to her for my brain to generate that specific appearance for her.
The dream brought me to tears because it depicted so many very specific things I once wanted for myself that would now be either unlikely or impossible to attain. It would be impossible for me to work anywhere outside my home without assistance from others to at least get to and from work, amongst many other things I was clearly doing myself in the dream. Even though I did not recognise the flat, I was clearly in love with and proud of the fact that it was completely my own, designed head to toe in my tastes, unfiltered by any adaptations or considerations for disability as it would obviously have needed to be in the real-world. I don’t have a girlfriend, let alone someone that is very much my unrealistic ideal partner. Even if I was in a relationship, I wouldn’t be able to hold her in my arms, let her cry into my chest and just make her feel safe in the moment with just by my physical presence. I wouldn’t be able to walk with my arms around her, into a bedroom, simply sit down, put my arms around her and just talk. These are all physical actions my disability makes impossible. I could recreate that chain of events relatively well in real life right now but it would take far longer to achieve than it did in my dream, and the deep romantic atmosphere would be almost entirely sucked out of the whole experience, not to talk of the inability to have a personal private argument and conversation due to my current need for 24-hour care. Even my offer to drop her off at work the next day would be a drastically less romantic gesture for a plethora of reasons.
And the real kicker: this is the first dream I’ve had in far too long without a single reference to having a disability. In fact, it felt as if my disability was something that had happened in the past, was now behind me and I had made a conscious effort to realise a picture I once had, pre-injury of what I wanted my life to look like at some point.
Everything that came together to make this dream was directly pulled from a combination of 1) things I used to imagine would become reality in my life before injury and 2) thngs I now see in hindsight as possibilities that could’ve been more likely to play out for me if the injury never happened 3) and yet, knowing what I know now. I think that’s why it brought me to tears. It was a window into a life I created in my head from elements I’ve always wanted but concluded were unattainable, so had never actually envisioned as one full picture. Seeing (and very much feeling) it all come together, only to then realise it was still a figment of my imagination was far too jarring.
I have no intention of trying to stop the pain I’m feeling right now something that has never existed. This is a world I had created but been unwilling to fully explore, but my subconscious had now forced me to not just put it to the back of my mind and forget it any longer. But instead, face it head-on in the most direct way it could. So I will let myself feel the entirety of what I’m currently feeling and deal with these emotions head-on. I simply started to put it in writing in the hopes I would at least stop crying. It worked.
So beautifully composed – that when I read it, I didn’t know what to say
Then say nothing, enjoy the read, share with others who also might and hopefully, be better for it. Thanks for the read 🙏🏾