Non Guest

My nightmares changed about a year ago. I am no longer chased by unseen demons. I am now dreaming I am losing my mind.

The dreams start off as an adventure. I travel to one city or another. I have an agenda and people I plan on seeing. I marvel at the busy streets, the colorful shops, the people. I'm there to have fun and to live life to the fullest but I can't remember how I got there. Sometimes I'm in a shop getting my hair cut or buying a cold drink when it hits me - I don't really know where I am. I pull out my phone, but I can't remember how to use it. Everything seems incomprehensibly difficult. I need help but can't figure out how to ask for it, and when I do, I am so confused that it is impossible for anyone to help me.

I've dreamed of being in New York before. Last night I found myself at your house. No, you don't live in New York, but in the dream you did and you are not a performer, but last night you were. I realized I was outside your home to see you. I followed your wife on the subway to your performance - she got out and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. I followed, my footing hindered by the ice skates I found myself wearing. There was no ice.

I seemed to know everyone you were performing with and was allowed back stage. I was there because I thought I had a walk on part, but I'd imagined it. The dream turned on me at that point - I knew I had made a critical mental error. You were kind and sweet, everyone was except for your wife who could not stop glaring at me. We'd had a past you and I. To my rattled brain, it was as if we were still friends. Why was I there?

There was an elaborate after party - I skated from group to group, chatting and so happy just to be apart of it. I was caught up the moment, uncaring what might happen next. Until it happened.

I was back at your house, uninvited. I'd let myself in and placed my bags on the guest bed to try and sort out where I was and how to get home. Your home was not a safe haven, it was the only haven my mind could find. Nothing was making sense to me. I had a memory of needing to call my sister to come and get me, but I could not work my phone. I wanted to call my husband and have him calm me down, but numbers were making no sense. I felt tied to a train track with the train coming.

You and your wife were not home yet. The realization that you would be walking into your perfect home to find me there was terrifying. I had to work this out. I turned out my pockets and my bag looking for clues. If I could figure out what to do, I could leave before she found me here.

My bag was filled with receipts and notes and 2 phones, one mine. I found no id but there was a credit card. There were bits of kitchen items as if as I was leaving I tossed them in just in case - a sponge, a vase, a bowl. I found no coat, no proper clothing, I was dressed for a party, not for traveling and at some point I'd lost my boots. As I poured out the contents they became impossible to manage. I could not decide what was important and what was not. I'd been hauling all this with me unable to part with anything in case it meant something. But I was rational enough to know when you and your wife walked in the house, I would have to explain myself and beg for help.

You walked in with your husband - a look of shock on your face.I was standing at the guest room door. I was not your guest. At first you screamed at me to get out of your house which I was unable to do. I was caught in a loop of confusion. I offered to get on a subway and just ride until I figured out what to do. It was pathetic. I was pathetic. I was terrified.

The subway entrances snaked off in all directions. I needed to get to the airport, but which one? I needed to book a flight home, but where was that? How was I going to be able to fly without an ID? Maybe I did have one, just lost in the rest of the jumble of my bags.

I was trying to buy tickets when you showed up with your son. Maybe you'd taken pity on me, or maybe you just wanted to make sure I was going. You swiped my card at the machine, you tucked it into the right pocket of a blue jacket lent me, you had me lighten my load of all the things I need not need. You offered to send your son with me to make sure I got to the airport. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I no longer remembered I'd even had a friendship with your husband. In my mind - all I wanted was to have my husband come and take me home.

Request answered: My husband was there beside me. Guiding me through the confusing crowd. His voice reassuring and gentle until he lost his grip on me and I was lost again.

I found myself back at your house. I was confused and frightened and knew something was very wrong with my thought process. There was something I needed to do. In the dream I spent hours as the uncomfortable non-guest with you alternating between being kind, and screaming at me for things unresolved in the past. Time could not move fast enough. You served breakfast to your neighbors. There was no setting at the table for me. I needed to tell you I was sorry for all the pain you felt in the past that I'd had anything to do with. I was sorry for all the pain you felt in seeing me appear in your life now. I was sorry for putting you through all of it.

I was sorry, I was so sorry.

I woke up in my bed snuggled up to my husband, but the dream has rattled me to my core.

I really am sorry.

Head on

It was in art class that you told me you'd broken into the student council closet that held all the candy machine supplies. You pushed a candy bar at me with a sneer. I don't believe we'd ever even shared two words before that. I was a freak then, I know that, and you wanted to see how the freak would respond.

I was not popular in High School. I was reasonably attractive. I was good at almost everything, and especially good at art, but what made me a freak was that I could not lie. That paired with a hyper sensibility to rules meant if you broke a rule in front of me, I would report you. I cared more about how adults saw me than how other kids saw me. It made me feel empowered. It also made me a victim.

I had been one of the kids that got the school to agree to the candy machine. The proceeds were going to fund dances and the like. My point was that these would benefit all of us.

You were one of a gang of "bad boys" who split their time between auto shop, cruising, and harassing other kids in the halls. There was no question, you were dangerous. Your friends were dangerous. There had been rumors of weapons at school and beatings after school. If you weren't the gang's leader you were certainly at the top of the pack. No one stood up to you.

I stared at the candy then calmly suggested you should put it back - all of it. I told you if you put it back, I would pretend you never told me. I also told you if you did not put it back, I would report you.

You laughed at me. I reported you.

Retribution came first with threats from your gang. I was cornered in a hall and weapons were flashed at me. They were clear, I would pay for turning you in. Something stopped me from reporting that. Perhaps fear. Perhaps curiosity. It was not long before I found my beloved VW bug destroyed in the school parking lot. Tires flattened. Paint scraped and dented from the knives and the brass knuckles I'd seen.

I should have been scared, but instead I saw it as an act of cowardice. They had attacked my car, not me. My car could not fight back. My car could be repaired and I refused to be bullied. I marched back in and reported the damage and the prior threats.

I was marked. From then on every time someone truant was found out, every infraction of the rules - anything at all - it was assumed I told. Nothing I could say or do could change those opinions. I did not know anything outside my own little world, but it did not matter. I was a snitch.

My sister dated within your gang. She wore the leather jacket and played the bad girl to my goody two shoes. I'd cried wolf so many times, our parents ignored my pleas for them to stop her.

When I heard you were in the car that crashed head on into a tree at 50mph - I cried. The boy who'd put the jacket on my sister was in that car too as was another of those who'd threatened me. I was away at college by then. You and your friends were drinking and cruising that night. Everyone in the car died. For the rest of us, life went on.

That day in art class, I was willing to lie for you.
I was not afraid of you.
I was afraid for you, and the path I saw you on.

You died within walking distance of the cemetery you were buried in.

Crossing the hatch line

My sister and I used to insist there was a line down the center of the backseat of our parent's car. There was my side. There was her side. We called it "hatching" the car. It allowed us to disagree without either of us being wrong. As long as she stayed on her side of the "hatch" I was cool with whatever. But crossing the "hatch line" meant full on battle.

I admit, there were times I let my shoulder slip just past the imaginary line, hoping she would blow up and get yelled at. I am certain she did the same. We both craved being able to be the smug one. It never lasted. We simply could not allow the other to get away with hatch violations because it was never really about the line.

Our parents wanted us to get along. We were sisters. We should have been nicer to each other. We should have shared. We fought our battle over butt space, but we the real conflict was over emotional territory. We were both certain the other was loved more, and fighting over that could not be mentioned. To be honest meant losing the illusion of control.

I would set her up, then rat her out. She would slap her own face then claim I hit her. We would say anything to make ourselves look good or the other look bad. I was older, thus expected to know better. I was older, thus assumed to be the one who started it. She was younger, so her emotional response, tears, were ok. I was told to stop crying because it was believed I was crying on purpose. Which of course caused me to believe she was crying on purpose and thus being falsely accused of something I was certain she was doing. Being falsely accused made me furious. Being furious led me to set her up again.

Of course this is me looking back. I had no idea at the time why I felt as I did, or why I did what I did. I was doing what I felt I needed to to hold my emotional place in our family. The lying, the manipulation - they never worked. I've learned through my life that honesty makes me happy. I also learned that nothing hurts me more than being accused of manipulation. I don't lie. I cry because I am sad. I say what I say because it's how I feel. I have no hidden agendas. They make no sense to me.

Ah History. You've become my little sister haven't you? Slapping your face and showing others the mark left. You've drawn a hatch line between us. And just like my sister and I, it's not about butt space.

I could fill this story with my feelings, but only one matters.
I don't trust you.

Clues

I found myself taking a virtual walk down the streets of Ellinwood, Kansas. Google street view put me in front of my childhood home and then let me walk all around it. I walked to my elementary school. I walked past friend's houses and fields of corn. I walked to the library and downtown. I walked to the swimming pool where I almost drowned and around the park and the bleachers.

I moved my walk to Great Bend, Kansas were I found my other childhood home, grandmother's home and Uncle's - all on the same street just houses part. I walked through the park where the pedophile lifted me up to reach the high bar. I ran to the home my grandmother used to live in - the home I lived in when I was just a baby.

I found my other grandmother's home and the ditch near by that gave me shivers.

It was odd. And it left me wanting more.

Lier

You lived in the apartment behind my Portland flat.

You worked at the grocery across the street. You invited me to come and listen to Fleetwood Mac's new album. You took my hand and led me into your dark apartment. You were a gentle young man,18, shy,and polite. I been raped a few months before and I was afraid. You smiled and convinced me all you wanted was to be my friend. I believed you. I was alone and facing cancer and I needed a friend.

I drove myself to the hospital for the surgery. I was only 20. I arrived with my suitcase and a photo of my boyfriend Doug and myself which I put beside the bed. I told the nurses about Doug and that he was in California. A priest came to talk to be before the surgery. I'm certain he meant to set my mind at ease, but instead he left me feeling like I would die that day. I went under ready to pass.

I woke up back in my hospital room. There was movement all around me and hands exploring my body - adjusting my clothing and in my drugged state - I assumed it was the nurses. My vision cleared and you were in my room. You were removing my hospital gown. The nurses had let you into my room because you told them you were my boyfriend. I tried to call out for help, but I'd just had surgery to remove a lymph node in my neck. I was bandaged and in pain. You kept saying you were there to take care of me. I fought you and the noise brought the nurses and you ran.

I should have had them call the police. I should have sued them for letting you into my room. I should have trusted my own mind that you had really been there, but I was 20 and nothing seemed real then.

The lymph node was sent to the lab but determined not to be cancerous. It was strange though, as it was grey and crumbled once removed. Atrophied. My tonsils had done the same thing. I was not dying. But I was in pain, both from the surgery and the intense back pain from the anesthetic. I did not know then I had defect in my spine.

I was trapped in my flat. Flat on my back, in intense pain and taking so many drugs I was in and out of consciousness. I had no one to come and take care of me. A part of me wished I had died rather than be in so much pain and alone.

I woke up with you in my bed. You had broken into my flat. I was groggy and limp and you repeated what you'd said in my hospital room, you were there to take care of me.

You lied.

The dark place . my first abuse

I remember my first nightmare.

I was not yet two years old and I was being chased round and round a palm tree by a tiger. I had a tiny bow and arrow. I'm certain this came to my mind that night because of the radio story Little Black Sambo, the story of young Indian boy who meets up with a tiger and turns him into butter. In my nightmare, I was the one being turned to butter.

I had nightmares almost every night from then on. I remember most of them. The main reoccurring theme was being chased - and the primal fear of being caught and held against my will. To this day, I cannot stand to be held while someone whispers in my ear. The feel of the warm breath, the hissing of the words without the ability to break free is terrifying.

As I grew older, my nightmares turned to sleepwalking. In my teens I would wake up in the kitchen or the living room. I had sprinted out of my room to escape something in a dream. My sister would talk in her dreams. Scream. She would scream my name.

Time took me further from my night fears until the birth of my daughter. Then the dreams shifted to being unable to protect her. And then, they came true. But my dark place is not the same as her's. Mine lives somewhere back in my past where I was the child needing protection - where I was the one held and forced and then running...

I remember almost all my nightmares. So why can't I remember you?

My daughter's therapists noted my uncanny ability to relate to what happened to her. They worked with me for years to accept what happened to her and myself, both in the now and in the past. I was told not to pursue regression therapy. It seems the mind blocks things it can't handle. I've waited 20 years for the memories to come, but there is only the dark place. No glimmer of light, or flash of content. Nothing but my suspicions.

What did you do to me? When was it? Where was it? Was it just you or did things repeat themselves? Was it what you did that lead me to be so vulnerable to others? Was there something familiar that drew me to the men who raped me? Each pretended they were with me out of caring. I yearned to be comforted, to be held. I felt responsible for the things that happened to me. I led men on, or so I would be told again and again. I was told I invited the attention. Why would I do that? Why would I set myself up to be manipulated, trapped, sexually exploited?

My suspicions point to you.

When you die, I hope a memory strikes a match in the dark place where I have hidden you. Dead, you won't be here to trick me into keeping our secret. I will tell the world and you will forever be what I say you are. Or you can tell me yourself, if you feel remorse. And you do feel remorse and fear I'll remember - it's how I know who you are without remembering. It's in all the things you haven't done.

One day I will remember.

Tethered

If there is something I can do to help you, I do. I don't add up what that means to me. I don't figure my cut or how much I stand to loose . I believe, instead, that by helping you I'm helping myself. Good given = good received.

I imagine us on a raft, floating along together, each of us assisting the other. Happy and content in the knowledge that we are there to support each other. If something is better for you than for me - yours! If something is better for me than for you - mine! And all the rest we share.

But you aren't sharing. You fight to keep control of everything. By holding on so tightly, you are losing much more than you are keeping. Opportunities you can't imagine are moving past you as if you are a rock in river.

I imagine a time when you realize there is more in front of you than what you think you see. I imagine your respect - for me - for others. I imagine you giving without thinking of it as loss. I imagine not needing to untie the knot.

But I know I can't stay tethered to you as you are now.

Inner child

I remember you as childless, filled to the brim with yourself. Singular, no matter who was in your life, frozen in the you I knew then. Time stopped.

I found your son online when I was looking for you.

He is the lifetime that's past since I knew you. He has your eyes and your energy. I looked through the clues he chooses to share with the world and I could see a person filled to the brim with himself. Your child no longer a child. Childless. Singular. Moving at light speed. Inner child brought into reality, raised and nurtured, then released to fly or fall.

You are again childless, as am I. Our inner children now young adults living their own lives much as we lived ours. And each of us filled to the brim with all the time that's passed and all the people we've met along the way.

You lived through it

It made you who you are today.

You've shared bits of it as you've gone along. Kindred souls took in your words and understood it from their own perspectives, but only you know what you lived through.

Tears well up from that dark place where you locked up your memories. You talk to yourself. Pain revealed, love remembered, shared with personal ghosts you move a step further into your future.

Your life - a series of events that made you who you were, who you are, who you will be. And somewhere, our lives crossed. Good or bad we shared a bit of it together and it made me who I am today.

Thank you.

The present of the past

You've grown up. You're older. I'm older. And yet, I can still see you, inside. Something wonderful is happening. The world is getting smaller. I've missed you.
::::hugs::::