Day 1 Starts Now
I know, the title sounds bleak BUT it isn’t. It’s more just representative of Day 1 of this process. Since I was married at 18, I’ve been sleeping next to the same person. She always been there and present for everything…every step of the way. Sure she has gone out of town before but tonight and every night during this month, it is and will be different.
I admit I do have a little anxiety about it. This is mostly tied to my main childhood issue that I’m about to go full throttle in dealing with.
Female Abandonment.
This issue SUCKS….a LOT. It really distorts the shit out of what it means to have a relationship with a female. So back in the day when I was 9 years old, my mom and dad divorced and I think even before that she had emotionally checked out of their marriage. In her own world and journey she was on at the time, my brother and I were sort of emotionally forgotten by her. I mean, she loved us and was nice to us when she was around but she started avoiding the house more and more and then they split.
Back then my little brother and I were in survival mode living with my dad so we on the surface just dealt with it. My mom was so unhappy with my dad for her own reasons and vice versa that she distanced herself from our house and her involvement with us quite a bit.
Dreams
I recall having a couple recurring dreams for several years during my childhood. The first one is obviously tied to the result of my mom not being around emotionally during the hard times.
Dream 1: The Nurturing Figure
This one is hard for me to even type as I sit here thinking about it. I was a child in this dream. I’m sitting in an apartment or condominium similar to the one I grew up in. There’s a little bit of a glow coming in from a window in the room but I can’t see anything outside the window. It’s just a faint glow. I’m sitting on a couch waiting in the living room. I wait for a while. There’s a hallway off of the room I’m in that leads into darkness. I remember sitting there in anticipation in this dream, eager to experience what is about to come down the hall.
Finally the moment comes and I look down the hall. A tall motherly woman with a soft glowing smile on her face comes down the hall, wearing a soft white bathrobe and a soft white towel wrapped in her hair. She looks down at me with a pleased face. Her face tells me she is happy to see me and happy to be here for me, happy to hold me and support me. She sits down gently next to me on the couch and puts her arm around my head and pulls it towards her lap. Once my head is on her lap, she caresses my head as if her plan is to stay with me as long as I need.
Dream 1: What I Think It Means
To me it just shows me the longing for a nurturing and emotionally available female. The irrational version of that longing still exists which is why I have a lot of work to do this month.
Dream 2: Rise & Fall
I dreamt that I’d be climbing an old metal kids slide at a park in Newport Beach that my mom or her parents would always take us to. This was the real deal too. Back in the old days, the 80’s, the parks had metal play areas and the slides were tall. I remember in the dream, I’d be slowly climbing up this slide, one rung at a time. happy as a clam. I’d look down and see other kids playing, my mom or grandpa sitting on the bench waving at me and happy. Everything was in slow motion.
I’d finally make it to the top, pull myself up to the small metal platform with pride. I’ve made it! I’ve arrived! I remember having those feelings and being so proud up there.
Then it was odd because all of a sudden everything around me disappeared. The ground dropped off around me. The other children were gone. There was no more laughing or playing or joyful screaming. There was no more grandpa or mom watching me from a bench. The slide was sitting atop a tall piece of land like an island that was surrounded by a long drop on all sides, rocky red cliffs all around.
The wind would pickup out of nowhere going from a breeze to a 100 mile an hour gust that would eventually knock me off the top. There I was falling…falling…down…down. I would in slow motion hit some rocks on the side of the cliff on the way down but there was no pain, no injuries, nothing.
Dream 2: What I Think It Means
I had this one pretty much back to back with the first one. We moved a lot when I was a kid and almost every school year, I was the new kid at the school, in the class. I think having to make new friends from scratch every year, my parents in and out of my life, re-marrying, etc. are to blame for this dream. Everything just felt so unstable. I think this is also tied to Dream 1 above in that the thought of losing someone I really care about and rely on beyond my control is stressful for a child, not knowing when things would come back or look up again.
Ok Enough Of The Dream Shit
My only point with the dreams wasn’t to sound like some weird hippy or tarot card reader but more to illustrate that it’s obvious that when you are a child, your experiences, emotional and otherwise, shape who you are. They make you do what you do when you’re older….UNTIL you figure out that that is the case. Then and only then can you realize that you don’t need to repeat your parents actions or behaviors. You don’t need to follow your instincts taught to you by them.
This is where I’m now exploring. My mom’s mom was distant from her emotionally as well, creating the same issue. I’ve realized I have the power to change that in myself but it’s gonna take some real work and it’s gonna take visiting some ugly places that I haven’t yet rooted out of my psyche so that I can start managing them like I have many of my other childhood issues.
Right now I feel still like I’m in limbo land. I’ve gone beyond the point of no return as far as being able to go back to the way it was 2 weeks ago but I don’t know where I’ll be yet. A future without Annie at my side is not good or bad but more just unfathomable because we got together at such a young age.
Tonight I helped her packed up her stuff for the first night of us being separated. We hugged and said I love you and it was genuine but it was strange and made me feel a little anxiety prone. I do want so bad for our marriage to work out for the right reasons. I did realize though that as I’ve started to work to get stronger and work on my issues that I do not want to be married to a co-dependent woman who does not have her own identity, her own self-esteem, her owned defined needs and wants, anymore. It just makes anything I do to help the relationship fruitless which leads to unhappiness and depression for me, and the eventualy unhappiness and long term marriage lull for her.
