the sleepwalker
When I was a little girl, I would often sleepwalk. My mom told me this and of course, I was full of little girl questions: Did I walk around with my arms in front of me, zombie-like? (No.) Were my eyes open? (Yes.) Did I talk? Reveal answers to the questions of the ages in my sleep-filled stupor? (Yes. And No.)
Apparently, I didn’t do much when I was sleepwalking, other than mumble answers to questions and wander around looking at our house until my mom hustled me back into bed. Weird. As an adult, I still sleepwalk. Sometimes I’ll go to sleep in my bed and wake up somewhere else. It still seems strange. Like some other person is in possession of me during the night. Some other person that I cannot control.
And for the last year, I’ve found myself sleepwalking during the day, too. Due to a variety of personal and familial heath-related issues, I’ve had a pretty high stress level. Working for myself has had its usual ups and downs. But when it comes to relationships, I see now that I have been drifting along, dream-like. Sleepwalking. With no ringing alarm bell to wake me.
It’s funny. When I was younger, I always thought that things would work out so perfectly. So storybook. I would finish college, have one year of freedom, then settle down and marry the man of my dreams.
Yeah, right.
Now that I’ve been out of college for more than a decade, and there’s no man of my dreams in sight, I look at things a little differently. Well, I try to look at things differently.
If you follow the blog, then you probably know that I spent last year mired in a couple of unhealthy relationships. Surreal “relationships” that went exactly nowhere. I didn’t tell you everything. And I just wrote about the ones that mattered most. But looking back on my writing now, it’s easy to see that I was searching for some kind of wake up call.
And as always, I’m left feeling like I must have done something wrong. Something that made me deserve to be treated so badly. And I still miss the friends that I lost. But, I see now... I see everything. I think that what for me was an important friendship was really just a dream. And it is my fault. For stumbling along blindly, like a sleepwalker. For not asking the right questions or getting more clarification on things that were said, and left unsaid. That was my fault.
This year, I’m making a resolution, as much as I hate that word. I’m going into new relationships with my eyes wide open. I’m not going to drift along in a dream-like state anymore. And I’m going to be more careful about who I allow into my life. For the first time, I can really see how I can do that.
Finally, I think I might be coming around.
Apparently, I didn’t do much when I was sleepwalking, other than mumble answers to questions and wander around looking at our house until my mom hustled me back into bed. Weird. As an adult, I still sleepwalk. Sometimes I’ll go to sleep in my bed and wake up somewhere else. It still seems strange. Like some other person is in possession of me during the night. Some other person that I cannot control.
And for the last year, I’ve found myself sleepwalking during the day, too. Due to a variety of personal and familial heath-related issues, I’ve had a pretty high stress level. Working for myself has had its usual ups and downs. But when it comes to relationships, I see now that I have been drifting along, dream-like. Sleepwalking. With no ringing alarm bell to wake me.
It’s funny. When I was younger, I always thought that things would work out so perfectly. So storybook. I would finish college, have one year of freedom, then settle down and marry the man of my dreams.
Yeah, right.
Now that I’ve been out of college for more than a decade, and there’s no man of my dreams in sight, I look at things a little differently. Well, I try to look at things differently.
If you follow the blog, then you probably know that I spent last year mired in a couple of unhealthy relationships. Surreal “relationships” that went exactly nowhere. I didn’t tell you everything. And I just wrote about the ones that mattered most. But looking back on my writing now, it’s easy to see that I was searching for some kind of wake up call.
And as always, I’m left feeling like I must have done something wrong. Something that made me deserve to be treated so badly. And I still miss the friends that I lost. But, I see now... I see everything. I think that what for me was an important friendship was really just a dream. And it is my fault. For stumbling along blindly, like a sleepwalker. For not asking the right questions or getting more clarification on things that were said, and left unsaid. That was my fault.
This year, I’m making a resolution, as much as I hate that word. I’m going into new relationships with my eyes wide open. I’m not going to drift along in a dream-like state anymore. And I’m going to be more careful about who I allow into my life. For the first time, I can really see how I can do that.
Finally, I think I might be coming around.
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