Dear Future Partner: Heavy Dreams and Submarines - #6

Dear Future Partner, 

I’ve been having really heavy dreams, lately. Nightmares. Sometimes I remember them, sometimes I’m just left with this vague fog, and it feels heavy. It’s like this huge emotional weight on my back that I can’t actually see, I just know that subconsciously, shit just went down. It’s like when you walk into a room where two people were just in the middle of a fight. You can just feel the tension in the air. Only it sticks with me all day.

It does get hard. I get lonely in some of those moments. I wish there was someone there to sleep next to, just to make sure I’m okay, someone to hold me through the night. Or someone I can hold onto, in those moments when I’m afraid. So I can keep myself from floating away.

And it's okay. I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m just saying, it’d be nice if you were already here, sometimes. It’d be easier. 

And I don’t mean just anyone. There’s warm bodies everywhere. Most of them I’m happy not being anywhere next to. But someone who actually understands. Who can hold space and listen and take it in, without needing to fix anything. Just being there. 

There’s such power in that. 

I guess it’s good in some ways, those dreams. It’s a way of talking to myself. A way of the deepest part of me getting a message through to the top level, conscious me. It’s like a submarine. I’m the submarine. I don't always know what’s going on under the surface.

Then one of my crew runs all the way up to the control room: “Cap–we got a problem! Down in the bilge, under the engineering panel, there’s a leak!”

I don't get mad at him when he gives me that news. As the captain, I get to make decisions based off that information. I ask him what he needs from me. He says we need to lower power emissions for the next hour so we can allocate resources to the repair area. We need to protect that area. So the ship probably shouldn’t go 1,000 miles an hour when I need a minute to repair.

I guess I’m open to hearing what my dreams have to tell me. It’s heavy news, but I’d rather know it and do something about it than have it sink me. 

But you know what they don’t teach you when you’re in school? What to do when you can’t sleep at night. What to do when you’re afraid of having that nightmare again. When you’re afraid that thing is going to haunt you. And what if you wake up and you’re not even you anymore? And there’s no one there to snap you back? No one there to make sure you’re okay?

It’s scary. It’s scary living, sometimes. 

For a while there, I kept waking up crying. But today I’m fine about it. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. What I’m supposed to learn from it. Sometimes it just would be nice if you were here already, is all.

And I wonder…what if by the time we meet, I’m not having those nightmares anymore? Can you still hold me anyway? Can you still pull me close? Just because? Not for what I’m going through. But for all that I’ve already been through? Will you hold me tight? 

But I’m fine. I’m off to make some breakfast.  And burn the cheese. I have plenty of things to do, after all. I’m just saying, sometimes. Not even most of the time. But sometimes, it’d be easier.