Night Dreamer

"I feel as though I will be okay if I just keep moving.  Keep dancing, and pretend your heart isn't breaking.  If you dance enough maybe it won’t matter anymore.  Take another shot, the pain will numb.  Seek out the sunlight; it does light the scene the best after all.  Show everyone your face in the sunlight, then they won’t look for it in the dark, they won’t see what is hidden from the audience.  Backstage in the wings, the dark accepts me, it holds me in my pain.  It sees in me a friend.  Just keep dancing, just keep up the act, Nobody will look in the dark."

(an excerpt from a piece of my writing called 'Of Perceptions.')

Daytime during the summer in Oklahoma is hot and sticky.  The very air feels heavy and oppressive, as the sun beats down on your shoulders.  The sky is pale blue, the flat land stretches for miles, it's all that there is.  I miss the deep blue of the sky in Colorado, I miss the mountains rising up, and the feel of the air.  However having grown up in Oklahoma the sounds and smells of the air on a summer night remind me of when i was a young girl spending the summers outside playing in our yard or the nearby park.  I remember the feel of grass against my bare feet, cool and soft as I looked at the sky and dreamed the dreams of a child.  

I still lie in the grass and dream.  Almost every night around nine or ten I can't stand being in the apartment another minute.  It feels like the walls are closing in on me, all of the thoughts and feelings that I have been trying so hard to keep at bay start to encroach.  Anxiety, and depression set in full force, only lying on the grass smelling the earth and seeing the distant twinkle of the stars help.  I love the way a soft breeze blows over me, peaceful, serene.  

I dream at night.  I dream of being "normal" or healthy.  I wonder what it would be like to not be sick.  I dare to dream of not being alone, letting someone in, falling in love and having a family.  Dreams of someday not letting pain, and conflict define me.  Someday maybe I could be a psychologist, and actually write the book I've been dreaming of for years.  Maybe I will stop feeling like I never really fit in anywhere, and maybe I won't always feel superior or vastly inferior.  I have all of these silly, pretty dreams of getting past this, and loving myself.  Of someday getting a tattoo of the word "loved" on my destroyed left wrist that I cut "hated" into repeatedly.  Anytime I felt it to be true I traced over the word, for many years.  I  dream that someday I won't believe that. 

 Night dreaming tends to lead to depression.  It always gets worse at night.  

 Last night I slept on our enclosed balcony, on folded blankets.  Even though it wasn't the most comfortable of beds just the night air  plus Anna reading "Anne of Green Gables," helped me calm down enough for the night meds to kick in.  maybe I can go find a tree to live in, or I can fly away with Peter Pan.  

(I just remembered I'm afraid of heights, possibly I should just stick to lying in a patch of grass dreaming.)