...and then I did NOT dream that while driving, I saw my more recent ex driving in his car, twice, in the past three weeks, and we made eye contact, or rather, exchanged gaping stares, but had no further communication. No smiling, no waving, no nodding, no texting. Nothing. Did we ever date? Were we ever in love? Am I still in love with him now? Did I do something to offend him and forget? What's the point? It might as well have been a dream that he was ever in my life. I dreamt up a boyfriend. a jewish boyfriend. a very high maintenance jewish boyfriend. a boyfriend's family. a boyfriend's annoying roommate. The emotional life I lead is so very similar to that feeling right after a dream. When you're still positive it really happened, clinging to the dream that is so desperately trying to escape the walls of your mind.
I'm not so positive anymore.
Maybe this is the key to letting go of the past. Despite searching high and low, I've never been able to grasp quite exactly how to do it. Maybe this is it. To accept that it's not happening anymore, and so since it's not in the present, it is nothing more than a dream. A nightmare, a fantasy, a group of biased memories. I cling to the facts, to the photos, to the words. But really it's nothing more than a dream. We accept that dreams end. We let them go. Crazy crazy dreams. They end and we don't long for them to return. Some of them do. We don't expect it. We don't wait for it. What more is the past than a dream? Maybe Calderon was right about life. The only thing real is the present moment, constantly fleeting, constantly out of our control. Life, the group of moments and memories and experiences that make up life, is no different than a dream. A dream we can no longer touch. no longer hold. What a mindfuck.
