Dreams, Coffee, and the Wind

I used to dream of him randomly and often. When I did, I awoke with sweat on my brow and a sinking, aching ball in the pit of my stomach. The morning brought reality. Time with him was not real. I awoke exhausted from seeing him again, having spent the night finding new ways to repair old broken bridges, new ways for him to apologize, new ways for me to forgive him. Each time I discovered him in my dream, I saw the rope of hope dangle loosely in front of my face, teasing. I grabbed it without hesitation every time. Reconciliation awaited me at the other end, and I spent the night sewing together the hurts of time.

But the morning always came before a resolution. I awoke and lay in bed, unmoving, blinking. I felt the heartache wash over me again as if it were new. I let myself float in it, as one’s body does in waves of the ocean, submerged partly in the water and yet rising to the surface unbidden to face the sun. My mouth grew dry. After some time passed, I sat up. I washed my face with cold water. Brushed my teeth. Forced a smile in the mirror and reminded myself that the dream was just a dream. He was no longer mine, and we were no longer us.

Others told me that young love is not lasting or profound. They meant it as encouragement for grief, but it was false. Young love is foundational. It molds the years that follow.

Sometimes months went by between the dreams. Sometimes a year. They were desperate nights that I did my best to shake off the next morning. As time went on, I dreamt of him far less. I numbed myself to him. Does time heal? Or does it just suppress? But the dreams of him became rare.

I tried out other relationships after him. I assured myself that, to be strong, girls must build achievements on the experience of vulnerability and pain. I stacked accomplishments on the shelves of my life yet still felt restless under their weight. Taking everything in me that was once rejected, I shined it and refined it and put it on a glittering display. I soaked up the praise of others like a sponge, gathering it into my body in hopes that I would not wring out dry. And silently, under the layers of productivity, my heart whispered, Am I enough? Is this enough?

Occasionally, even years later, I remembered him in the daytime. When I smelled pinecones, I remembered Christmas with him in the snow, drinking eggnog and kissing snowflakes off his nose. When I heard a funny joke, I sometimes remembered his laugh, rich and vibrating like the melody of a bass guitar. But I quickly tucked these memories away and stuffed them far, far down. Those memories belonged to the old me—the one he had left behind.

The more that I pushed down what had once brought me joy, the heavier my sleep became. The nights grew quiet, but burnout came in the day. And as the nights continued to stretch on in silence, the silence became a chasm of loneliness. I ached for a dream.

It was a cup of black coffee one morning that made me come alive. Not the actual cup, but the moment of realization I had while looking out my window sipping bitterness. I faced a truth that took years to form: I did love him once. He did love me. Love is not always enough. But I am lovable.

Perhaps the dreams of him never came to bring him back to me. Perhaps the dreams had always been about me. To remind me that there were days before I knew pain, before I felt loss. Days when I smiled because my heart smiled, days when I was heady with the gifts of the future. Because before we had broken each other’s hearts, I had believed the world existed for me to enjoy. Not to conquer. Not to consume. But to enjoy.

I knew then what I wanted: dreams of hope that could live in the day. I opened my heart’s box of painful memories and set them free to fly. I grieved that morning and left the remains of black bitter coffee on the table, cold. I cried into my knees while curled up in a ball on the tile floor, allowing the sun rays streaming through my window to reveal scars that needed to heal.

Slowly, I shed the desperate pursuit of proving my worthiness, and I replaced it with dreams of passion that broke my sleep and lived in the light. I pursued things I loved doing simply for the sake of doing them, rather than to convince the old me that I was capable of doing great things. And at some point, a point that I can’t specify because it formed gradually and unnoticed, I found forgiveness.

Recently, I dreamt of him again. Despite the passage of many years, we appeared the same as when we had known each other intimately. I was seventeen again, and he was approaching the end of bony adolescent elbows and innocent carelessness. But this time, I did not reach out to him seeking to mend wounds or reunite. This time, I spotted him in my dream from afar as he stood with his profile to me, waiting in a field of tall green grass blowing gently in the wind. The sky was a calm blue stretching out above us. Wind swept his hair across his face, shading his left eye in the same way I had once adored. And this time, when I saw him, I only offered a smile. A tentative smile that grew into a real one, a simple greeting. He turned fully to face me then. He nodded his head in acceptance, signaling that he had seen me, too, and then, like the wind, I moved on.