I Still Remember When We Were Us

I’d like to blame the full moon for today’s emotional hangover. It would be easier to assign responsibility to some astrological event. It would take the weight of it off my already-burdened shoulders.

But in truth, it was something as simple as a dream. That is to say, the truth is simple. The dream was not.

I don’t remember the details. I woke up holding onto impressions alone. I think that I was happy for a little while before waking. But after coming into consciousness, a rush of memories permeated the morning. Not of the dream but of the past.

I remember when we were us.

It’s a funny thought. I’ve been one part of a couple a handful of times in my life. Each version of me was different and also not different. But one time, I was wholly myself — until I began to resurrect the old protections one little piece at a time. I didn’t know how to stay vulnerable when I no longer felt secure inside the relationship.

But isn’t that the truth of life? It’s hard to make ourselves vulnerable when we don’t feel safe. Vulnerability is frightening enough without putting ourselves in further peril — and peril is exactly what it feels like to our nervous systems when we let ourselves be fully seen and known.

I became less of myself, so afraid of losing the love I had only just gotten used to having. And in doing so, in becoming less, I merely heightened the risk. I became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more I feared losing love, the more love I lost.

But I was only one half of the story. One half of the responsibility. The only part of a relationship we can ever fully understand is our own.

Grief is a curious thing.

It comes in waves. At some points, I’ve even be able to float along on indifference before being pulled down abruptly by the riptide of memory. I learned long ago not to fight it. I can only ever feel it.

It’s strange how we can be a part of something with our individual identity and a couple’s identity, and when it’s over, we’re something both more and less than we once were. After the end, which felt very much like The End at the time, I had to figure out who I was with all the bits and pieces of the relationship that had made me someone else.

I woke up after that dream drowning in the sense of losing something precious and being powerless to stop it. I woke up remembering what it was to be one part of a pair, to spend every day steeped in love for another human being — and what it meant to lose that. I remembered what it was to live on the cusp of loving and losing — that constant nervous system hum of anxiety beneath every moment.

But worse, I remember what it was like before when the inevitability of our pairing felt like solid ground. When I was never so sure of another human being as I was of this one. When love was layered with peace and calm, a bubble of laughter always near the surface. It hurt far worse to remember the joy than all that followed it.

So, I woke up carried on the wave of a dream I can’t fully remember but also can’t forget. I know that he was there, and I was there, and we were us again. Everything else is faded, paint blurring watercolor images together. I know it made me happy, and upon waking, it made me sad.

I could revisit the past, but what good would that do?

Instead, I try to capture what it was about that time in my life that I loved so much and grieved to lose. There was a sense of romance and adventure, but there was also plenty of laughter. There was a sense of being loved and accepted for myself — perhaps for the first time in the bounds of a romantic relationship. Before that evaporated, I felt vibrant, fully alive and present in my life.

I wonder if that’s not what I’m pulled toward in the dream — not just that sense of being known and accepted but that feeling of fully inhabiting and enjoying my life. Lately, the chaos of the country I live in has been weighing on me. From the peaceful protests in LA being crashed by the President’s attempts to distract us from his Big Ugly Bill to the capture of the humanitarian aid ship the Madleen a world away, I don’t feel peaceful and alive. I feel stressed and insecure. The world does not feel safe, and it’s not a stretch that my mind would reach back to a time when I did feel that way.

That sense of security and peace might be what I’m longing for when life is tumultuous. It wasn’t an easier time then. There was a pandemic heading straight toward us. I was developing symptoms of a chronic illness. But inside that sense of loving and being loved, I felt held and safe. I felt like everything would be okay.

That’s not to say that there aren’t things about that person I miss. There are. Too many to name. But I cannot credit that for my dream when I know that the underlying sense of it was a peace I don’t have right now. A peace I long for and miss.

When we miss someone, we need to ask what it is we truly miss.

While it’s likely true that some of what we’re missing is the person themselves, it’s often just as likely true that we miss some aspect of ourselves that the other person brought to life. There was something about who we were in that particular relationship that we’re longing to recreate. We might be tempted to reignite an old flame just for half a chance of feeling that way again, but without looking deeper, we might be missing the bigger picture.

I can’t go back and change what happened. I can’t make another person choose me and love me even on those days, and we all have them, when I’m hard to love. I can only look for the threads of the dream that are in my power to weave into reality.

Instead of trying to stay stuck in the past loving someone who doesn’t love me back, I can look at that time in my life and evaluate how I felt and what that meant to feel it. I can see what aspects of my personality were brought to the surface that may have been hidden or buried in other relationships. When I look closer, I can see that even though the relationship is gone, the person I was within it is still inside me.

I look for my personal power.

I plant fruits and vegetables to battle income and food insecurity. Raising chickens and rabbits as a part of my regenerative garden gives me a sense of peace. I surround myself with strong, like-minded people who provide a sense of community and support. I know that I am loved — even on the days, and we all have them, when I am hard to love. I try to rest in that sense of being cared for and known.

It’s true that there’s much happening in the world beyond my control. There’s a sense of unease in the polarity of my country. But there have always been wars and uncertain times. There has always been love followed by loss. These times are not unique to us even if they feel that way. History repeats, and human beings are often woefully predictable.

But that also means we are also wonderfully resilient. In the face of fear, we so often choose to love anyway. To laugh anyway. To make good lives despite the chaos around us.

The dream begins to fade, as dreams so often do.

I let myself have a moment to remember when we were us. I take some time to feel the grief of that loss — and to express gratitude that I know what it is to love like that and, for a brief moment in time, to be loved like that in return. But the pain fades, and I know that my mind is grasping at the straws of peace — a gentle nudge that I need to find that sense of ease and security in myself and not in another.

I cannot blame the full moon, as much as I’d like to. I decide to treat this emotional hangover like any other. I focus on rest and hydration. I move through the day slowly, treating myself gently. I accept that the past will always be intertwined with my present and future, and I find my gratitude for it.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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