The Dream

September 25, 2025

I wrote this several months ago after waking from another dream about him. I did some reading on why our brains do this. It is the subconscious’s way of cleaning house, unpacking and processing life in ways we can’t when we’re awake. I hardly ever dream about him anymore, but early on he filled my nights with nightmares.

I’m thankful to be 47, with decades of personal development, healing, and experience behind me. Post-traumatic growth is real. I’m using it to be antifragile.

'The Dream'

Last night, I dreamed of your house again.

Not you. Just the empty rooms.

Just me,

walking hallways where my name was never truly safe.

Touching things I left behind—

My pillow with the pink case,

The Phase 10 game I bought just for us.

Special photos that were framed just for you.

Gathering up pieces of myself like loose change,

forgotten under furniture that was never really mine.

The dogs were there.

I said hello like I used to,

soft, sweet, like nothing had shattered.

They wagged their tails,

still innocent in a story that bruised me bloody.

You weren’t home.

Of course you weren’t.

You never really were.

Not with me.

I woke up crying.

Not for you.

Not for what we had.

But for the ache of leaving,

the heaviness of realizing

that even my dreams are starting to clean house —not yours,

mine.

The one I carried inside me all this time.

It feels cruel somehow,

this purging of you,

this slow, relentless scraping away

of the soft, the hope, the ache,

until nothing of you lives here anymore.

It should feel like freedom.

And it does.

But God, it also feels like grief.

Because even when the cage is gone,

it hurts to leave the door behind.

And I’m sure I’ll visit again,

in dreams, in restless sleep,

in some half-lit memory I didn’t invite.

Maybe you’ll be there. Maybe you won’t.

But I’ll remember how I was always there

with a heart full of love and hope.

Always believing. Always trying.

Even when you couldn’t see it.

Even when you didn’t stay.

I gather myself in the morning light.

Tear-streaked, hollowed out,

but standing.

Because I know.

This is healing.

This is goodbye.

And I cry.