Sweet Dreams.... Of Living Life Until Death....

Sweet Dreams

What did I dream of before the age of five?  How about before ten?  Fifteen?  Twenty?  And how have my dreams changed since then?

That my grandfather didn't die.  That he would come back.  Before five... to stay in the countryside with my sweet doggie neighbor friends and the farm with the cows.  To spend more time with daddy fishing at the pond at the bottom of the hill.  Not to get stung by a wasp.  To get to eat chocolate cake and strawberry jam sandwiches.

To pass from one grade to another.  To get a favorite teacher ... to have no school on snow days.

To get my period and become beautiful like my sister.  To have a boy friend.  To have a dog, horse, and lots of love and affection from family.  To fit in.

To graduate from high school.  To get a job.  To meet and marry a dream person.  To be loved and accepted.  To be understood.  To fit in.

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After that it was always the wanting to find and be loved.  Wanting my first husband to love me.  Wanting my in-laws to love me.  To fit in.  Wanting my mother to love me and stop lying about me to my father.  Wanting my father to see through her lies - to see me - that I was always the me he knew from the start.  Wanting to be better than my siblings so that the NM could find fault in someone else.  Wanting to be the golden child.  Wanting to be accepted.

Then it was wanting to divorce that first husband who never did love me.  To leave the in-laws behind (who never did love me either).  Wanting to find love - to be loved by my primary family and the world somehow.

Then it was to feel forever as wonderful as the love Khaled had for me made me feel.  To marry him and have a child.  To have healthy children.  To NOT make the same mistakes my father made and to not be a cruel mother.  To love them and be loved by them and by Khaled and by my new in-laws.  And I was.  It was wonderful.  However, I was still pining for the love of the NM and fighting for the love and attention of my father.  Still wanting to fit in.  Still holding out hope.  Maybe my example of how I loved my children would show them how to love me.  Still dreaming.

Then it was to get through the years of elementary school, middle school, and high school with an ADHD child and two other children.  To not kill this child and to show him how much I loved him without destroying that love with my frustration.  To not let it show that the other two were such a joy since the challenge I was faced with was obvious.  To make enough money to please the children with things and activities beyond Khaled's budget.  To keep chasing NM's love, buying for her, sending for her, (everything was tinged by her) - all while raising her grandchildren she couldn't care less about.  Dreaming that one day she would become the loving grandmother for them that her mother was for me.  Never giving up that hope.  Never giving up on them - especially my father for who by then I felt mostly empathy.  Still dreaming to have a real relationship with him without the NM involved.  Just a dream.

Then it was all about freeing myself of the NM and a hundred and fifty extra pounds - and give my children more of me.  Going back to college.  Graduating from University with a BA degree.  The children's graduations... Those dreams all came true :)  But the NM was working her way back in.

Later I dreamed of surviving a four - six year depression.  A final dream of dying.  Then a dream of living long enough to tell my dying father goodbye - or at least to die in the same year.  Then I dreamed of fulfilling his dream for me.  To get better.  To go home and take care of that family.  My family.  The one who loves me and always did - the ones who watched me chase him and the NM all their lives - the ones who deserve my love and kind heart.  The ones who protect and care for my heart - my children and my husband, the greatest love of all.  Fitting in.

I now dream to once again shed those pounds... to live every moment......to see and hear everything that is happening around me.... to understand and to be patient, slow to become frustrated. To remember what matters and what is trivial.  To know what is life and what is not.  To know what is love and what is opposite.  To know NM kind of people when I see them and to politely steer clear of them, trusting my intuition knowing what I know, and NOT looking back.  To trust and to believe.  I dream of living life until I die.