I had an awful nightmare last night. I haven't written much about my nightmares – mostly because they partially went away when I met my boyfriend. I used to have nightmares that someone did something very wrong – shot me, for example. The pain was horrible, too. I would wake up aching.
These days, when I have a nightmare, I dream that I do something very wrong. When I lucid dream I can move things around and try to make the situation better, but the older I get the less I lucid dream but the more real and terrifying my dreams become.
The fact that this used to happen every night reminds me how different things are for me now. I used to cry every night too – the nights when there was no conflict, and I didn't end up in tears, were few and far between. It was that or scream back, and I don't like people who raise voices, but I have nothing against people who grieve. So I chose grief over revenge.
These days I only cry maybe a couple times a month, and that's mostly when I'm being affected by hormones anyway. Real sobbing, real grief, real “kill me” tears are rare now.
Same thing with nightmares.
That's why when my boyfriend says I cry a lot, it breaks my heart a little. Because I don't cry much at all, and my whole family has noticed. My dad doesn't rush into my room at 2AM anymore because I'm sobbing trying to reason with a horrible man. He rushes into my room at 2AM to ask if I have chips (:
I think that's been the hardest part of this transition. I've come so far and learned so much and grown into a bigger person and my ex is the only one who will ever really know it, the only one who can actually be proud of me for who I am now.
But on the flipside, maybe that's for the best. Here, the standards are higher, and I don't have a past of being a wreck to ruin my reputation or how much my partner respects me. It's an opportunity for a blank slate.
But see that's the issue. The parts pulling me back to the past are the ones that don't mind being stepped on, if there's no responsibility. They don't care about being a better person, they just want to go wherever I'll be taken care of. Where things are miserable but easy.
That's what my nightmare was about. I didn't realize it was a nightmare until I woke up. It was about reverting. I so much wanted to crawl back under that dark blanket where everything's warm and I can't see a thing, I don't have to be smart or good or any of that, I just have to exist and that's enough for the blanket.
But once you've poked your head out to see the world, and the light and the novelty, it's impossible to go back. Even if it's not safe out here, you can't just decide to forget. Even if now there are expectations, now there is right and wrong, now it's not a haze of grey area. Now you have to be a certain kind of person, do certain things and not do other things.
But part of you will wish you could have both, or that you can go back and put your head back under and sleep again, unknowing.
It's a Pandora's Box.