Kay The Kat

I had a dream about an ex partner last night. We were having Christmas. Gifts all around. It was happy, there was so much joy, I felt like I belonged and had a home. It felt new, exciting, fresh, and so good to be a part of a family that loved each other so hard.

With conditions of course.

I can’t tell you how many hours in my life I have woken up from a dream and spent countless hours trying to understand what it meant. Laying in bed trying to figure out my subconscious and what it meant to me.

Google tells me that if you have a dream closer to when you wake up it indicates you are coming to realize that you are mourning the relationship or you miss who you were during that period of your life.

My last long term partner was great, made good money, loved me, had a beautiful house, friends, a family, everything I ever desired. House wasn’t a house, it was a home. Or so I thought.

It’s officially been three years since that breakup. Three years is how long we were together. He’s married now.

I tell myself so much I made the right choice. That man loved me, conditionally. It felt right from the outside, but I didn’t feel it on the inside. He wanted the house, the job, the wife, the family, the image. You know what I wanted? To be seen. To be heard.

As I’ve been working in therapy this year I’ve come to the realization that I have so many wounds. Emotion wounding that was the base line for who I was. My body has been in survival since I could remember. I never felt unconditionally loved, never felt safe, never once felt like I belonged until I was with him. But as time passed I just realized how conditional it really was. It wasn’t about me, he wanted a wife and a mother I knew I couldn’t give him that. I knew that what he wanted didn’t align with what I wanted. I made poor choices, I had bad behavior, I ruined our relationship time and time again and he forgave me, why? He wanted someone to fill his dream and I just sat in the first row spot.

After the breakup I mourned him, his family which gave me so much love— it felt like a family I belonged in. They hugged me, told me that they loved me, it was what saved me when I didn’t want myself. But realizing that it wasn’t about me, it was about their son.

Now here I am three years later still mourning a man - that never could have worked out. He’s married now to a woman who probably wants those same things he is after. Not on his clock, but soon I’m sure. After a fake dream of a memory that never happened.

I now have a partner who shows me what it’s liked to unconditionally be loved. He sees me. Sees my heart and soul and I never once think I can’t ask or tell him for anything. It’s a strange feeling being so broken and weak and feeling that unconditional love is not as good as conditional. I’ve never had to be anything other than myself around him and his family. I’ve never once had to not be myself or hide what I believe in because his family agrees with me. I’ve never felt ashamed of who I am around them. And yet, it still feels so foreign.

My parents don’t tell me that they love me, it’s always an afterthought or a forced interaction. An act covered with a blanket of sarcasm and fear. I realize now that they too have emotional wounding so far beyond themselves. They don’t say good job, or ask about work, they only care about my future spouse or what he can do for me. It’s so hard to understand what love is.

To me love was being controlled. Being taught that if someone gave you the time of day to take it because who else would? I’m high maintenance, I ask for too much, I have too high of standards. Ok? As if basic human connection is a high standard. I realize now that asking for something gets you something. Not being passive, not waiting for someone to offer. Asking will get you something.

I have the love you dream about, the bend over backwards love and it still stings. It feels so hard to accept. This past year has been a transformation of who I am.

I’ve learned the brain is a muscle and although it’s hard to retrain it can be done.

I love my partner, I do not love myself, and I’m working on that.

So having the dreams that make me miss who I WAS makes it so hard to feel like what I have is valuable. It makes me miss when I was comfortable in my misery being a slave to misogyny. It makes me miss not having my own thoughts, it makes me want for a person who would rather have sex with a person who was not interested, it makes me miss someone who never actually wanted, me, but themselves.