What a beautiful piece of heartache
This has all turned out to be
Lord knows we’ve learned the hard way
All about healthy apathy

Listening to her ethereal voice, I realized that I was lonely.
Not alone, mind you – I have a roommate.
Not bored – my life has been a whirlwind of late.

Yet in the midst of the hustle & bustle, in the midst of a social calendar that is overflowing with (happily received) obligations, I find that there’s something missing. There’s an emptiness in the revelry, a longing for something I’ve yet to identify.

There is a me you would not recognize, dear
Call it the shadow of myself.

The words touch my heart, as I’ve spent much of the past few years saying that I was ok. Ensuring that others were getting through it all has been my main goal, putting my well-being way back in the list of priorities. People continually tell me that I’m so well-adjusted about it all, that I’m handing it with a maturity that they don’t know they would have. I take their compliments with a muted sense of pride, a reassurance that I’m doing the right thing. You can put on a brave face to the world for a long time, yet you can’t hide from yourself. Especially in your dreams.

I’m a good sleeper. I can nap on a whim, snooze on a plane, and have never had insomnia that I can remember. I’ve also always been a vivid dreamer, often trying to put the puzzle of my subconscious together and crack the code of my somnabulist ponderings. I firmly believe that dreams DO mean something, whether obvious or cryptic. Lately, though, I wake up with an overwhelming sense of melancholy, a sadness that I can’t pinpoint. My dreams have been somewhat tumultous, leaving me exhausted when I awake. They are anything but restful, and it makes me wonder if I’ve been doing the wrong thing all along. Maybe it’s my turn to feel.

They’ve taken a toll, these latter days.