On dreaming

And nightmares in Midtown

For over a year I’ve had really intense nightmares. It took six months for a dr to finally help me sleep but now, the weird dreams are back. They’re not really nightmares the way I was having them, there’s no violence or torture, just strange recurring themes.

The end result though is I wake up not only tired, but sad. The other night I dreamt I was forced to move to the middle of nowhere in Colorado in some town where a giant freight train ran behind a row of houses. Each container on the train had enormous boulders spilling over the edges. Our home had five washers and dryers, but the living room which was lined with dark green carpet, had a giant hole in the middle. Below the hole was a parking lot, dark and scary and so none of us ever went into the living room, and no one ever fixed the hole. (Jung eat your heart out with that one) I remember going out for a walk and trying to get a sense for where I was living and all I could think about was how sad I was that I wasn’t in New York. Then the next night I dreamt, though I’d call this a nightmare, that I got trapped in Midtown. Only people who live in NYC can fully understand that hell, but I just couldn't get out. I was stuck in my underwear in some giant cafeteria-like room and kept trying to hail cabs and call Ubers and no matter what I did, my phone wouldn’t work and I had to stay there. Then last night I was in another home and the wooden floors kept collapsing, revealing a giant hole in the middle of each room. I decided I’d had enough and started packing my things and tried to navigate collecting my items by gripping the wall and doing everything I could to not fall in.

Something about that dream felt so sad. I kept trying to protect myself and it didn’t work. I’m sure my therapist will have a field day with these but they’re also probably related to a conversation I keep having with her about grief. I know by this point that the saying that we all have seasons in our lives is true and I think I’ve been in winter for awhile and can’t imaging emerging from it anytime soon, though I hope I do. And because only a couple of people really know the inner workings of my life, I find this to sometimes feel not so much lonely, but foreign. I miss feeling the way I used to and I know I need to accept the slowness and heaviness of this season but I worry the person I was a few years ago will never return.

But I think I just typed out the problem. I’m waiting to be reunited with some old version of me. A version that didn’t experience all the loss and trauma of last year. I think the reason I’m not finding her, is because she’s gone. What’s that quote? I’ve been so many women in my life? Something like that. Well, I have and continue to be someone new. I’m getting to know her and it’s weird. I know healing can look and feel like stagnation when really I’m doing more deep inner work this past year than I’ve ever done. Sort of like those boulders on the train, I’m unearthing and shepherding in feelings I’ve suppressed for decades. All the abuse in my marriage, never really dealt with that, or the loss of family members, or just the string of bad things that bad people did right after that bad marriage ended. We all have our stories, and this one is part of mine. It’s not all of it, but when the train overflows, things have to be dealt with and so here I am.

Funny enough, today on a work call with my manager and some climate folks we went around the zoom call and introduced ourselves. When it got to me I said my name, said what my role was and the leader of the call said “Oh I know you, I know your work really well, I’m a fan.” There’s no instance where this isn’t flattering and somehow in my job it happens a lot and it always makes me blush. But it also makes me think in that moment, “oh me? Oh right I am that person” do I still get to claim her? If I’m not writing every day or publishing articles or selling my book right now then do I still get to be her? Can I still say I’m a writer, that writer? I think the answer is yes? We’re all always trying to accept ourselves, new versions and old and are tasked with this work for our entire lives. We’re lucky to get to do it, but it’s a challenge, one that is very much a solo job and as such can sometimes feel a bit lonely.

I’ve seen different versions of my friends over the years, even different versions of my parents. It’s fascinating to see how people move through their lives, how they navigate all the surprises both good and bad. I’m trying to bear witness to that for myself as well. This is just one of those times where as much as I want to, I can’t rush past this part. I see so many friends and acquaintances doing all the things one is supposed to do in a lifetime. But no one ever talks about what a life means when you’re alone. And not alone in a sad way, but alone in a joyous way. Getting out of my marriage was a rescue job and I have been reveling in that victory for four years now. I wouldn’t change that decision for the world, not for anything. And the men I’ve loved since then, I wouldn’t change those experiences either because I know how much love I’m capable of feeling. But these are easy things, familiar things. We love love and we know what it is to measure a life when that life contains all the usual cast of characters.

But no one teaches us how to be alone. For those of us who are alone by choice and those of us who don’t have children there’s no measuring stick for success. Are those things the giant holes in the middle of the floors? Might seem like it but my hunch is they’re not. What I’d really like besides never getting trapped in midtown, is to view my life through a lens of curiosity rather than of judgement. Self judgment really, but you know folks out there still wince at a 39 year old childless single woman. We make people uncomfortable. And sometimes I make me feel uncomfortable too because I was not raised in a world to expect this version of me as a potential outcome. So far this version is really weird and I realize I’m talking about myself like some faulty software or toy that’s been revamped but has more bugs than ever, but it feels that way? I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about because we are always changing. Thank goodness for that too.

But I guess what I’m trying to say is sometimes getting familiar with who we are as we grow and heal feels akin to something like suddenly living in a random part of Colorado or not knowing why you’re in your underwear in some Midtown cafeteria. It just makes no sense.

I’d like to imagine this new version is someone like this:

But in reality I think I’m turning out more like:

x

S