Sweet Dreams

I am pulled gently out of sleep and note the persistent darkness as my eyes slowly open. The clock reads 4am. Too early. I press play one more time, letting the artificial sounds of rain fill the room. An attempt to trick my brain into relaxation once more. After listening to the pounding of the rain that is not outside my window for what feels like an hour, sleep still doesn’t come. I lift myself up slowly and stretch, letting a yawn draw in and out of me. I turn to rest my back against the wall and pull up the blinds. I see a golden apple pear, sliced in half. It floats above a branch. As my eyes continue to adjust, the pear becomes a barn owl. It is looking at me, I think. Its day is ending while mine begins. I wonder what the night has held as I swam in confusing dreams that I no longer remember. I only feel the vague sense of panic and sorrow they instilled while I made my way through.

I am sure that the owl looks at me now, expectantly. A bit annoyed. I've awoken too early, it has not finished the delivery. It ruffles its feathers. I raise my eyebrows in a way that says, "I'm sorry, I tried to fall back asleep, but it's just not going to happen." It stares at me a bit longer before turning and flying away, almost in a huff. My dreams will be extra heavy tonight.

I take in a few deep breaths before scooting to the edge of the bed, letting my feet touch the cold wood floor. I switch on the little, wooden lamp that sits on my bedside table and it glows a little warmth into the room. I stand up and make myself some toast with jam and coffee. As I crunch down on my toast, letting the pleasant flavors of bread and sticky sweet strawberry jam fill my mouth, the remembrance strikes me. I see myself sitting in the kitchen with my mother. Warm light shining from the corner. Having breakfast and shouldering each other’s burdens.

I had forgotten that it wasn’t always like this. I didn’t always have this quiet solitude. Their sorrows, their struggles, their pain once came to me in my waking hours as I walked with them side by side. I remember the choice I made, to separate myself. The exchange. To ease my mind during the day. That’s right. It wasn’t always like this - carrying their burdens in my sleep. Waking up feeling as though I hadn’t slept at all. With nothing but a sense of the heavy emotion of what I had dreamt.

Did I really choose this for myself? Is it easier this way? - not to remember as I awake; living this double life? If life is what you can call it. I can’t help but feel that I am missing something. There is something in me that has grown cold.

I leave my house and go through the motions of my day. Listless. I do not notice the yellow flowers dancing along the side of the path. I do not notice the warmth of the sun’s rays on my face. I do not notice the smiles and the easy laughter. I know they are there, of course, but I don’t really notice them. I don’t really experience them as I once did. The day moves past me like the world outside a train window.

But then, as I ease myself under the covers at night, this thought settles into my mind, into my very bones: To forget the pain is to lose it all. The sorrow and the joy. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I cannot separate them out. I cannot have one without the other.

I sit up and look out the window. The owl comes again and greets me from his branch, then looks at me questioningly, as if he knows.

“Yes,” I say. “It’s time. I’ve had enough of this.”

The owl comes to me and grasps the shoulder of my brown flannel pajamas in his mystic claws and pulls me up and up and up.