n-poledancer's Diaryland Diary

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covered old footprints

A dream

I dreamt this one night when I was around 11 or 12 years old:
I'm an adult, and I am playing in the snow with my boyfriend. We are madly in love, probably just engaged. That was the vibe. The landscape is beautiful, with pristine snow, and tall trees in the distance. A log cabin. It didn't look Icelandic, it looked more Norwegian or even American. I wouldn't have known, I was only 11. I still remember the dream vividly or as much as I can 40 years later. We get on a sled and down a slope until we crash into something. We both fall off the sled and the boyfriend decides to quickly disappear. Once I get up from the fall I discover a skeleton hidden under the snow. Its bare-boned hands clutching something which turns out to be three gemstones still attached to a small rock sliver. One yellow, one blue, one red. I knew intuitively these belonged to me. I admired them, somewhat amazed, when a priest showed up unexpectedly with an authoritarian and arrogant aura around him and took the gems stating they did not belong to me but to the church. At this moment the skeleton became alive and declared them mine. The priest rushed away, embarrassed to have been exposed as a fraud or a thief. I also stood there in shock and alone, wondering what to do next.

Justice

It was for the best that I didn't realize at this very young age that this dream would come true. I was too preoccupied wondering why I was left alone and what the three gems stood for. If I tried to explain this dream to that child today I would say they possibly meant an education, a family, and the career I wanted. Maybe they were something else. I don't know, all I do know is that I didn't get to enjoy something that belonged to me.

In this year, 2024, I have found justice. Something I intensely craved a very long time ago. My mistakes have been absolved. Yesterday I had to dig a bit into the past and look through emails I sent to institutions and people two decades ago. What I found surprised me:

I tried hard enough
I dealt with it
I made effort
I spoke up
I tried
I tried
I tried

I lost
It was unfair

I feel free from this surreal type of house arrest, I cannot think of anything else to compare to the limitations I have lived with for an extremely long time. I didn't do anything wrong. I was a young woman doing my best.

I don't have to forgive myself. There is nothing to forgive. I don't need to punish others. It's pointless.

I always thought when I would write this chapter, I would call it "the reckoning". But that's not it. It is closer to peace, calm, and possibly even surrender.

There is one more thing I am waiting for. The words "I shouldn't have left".

I just need to hear them. I don't expect action to follow. I need to hear them because it's the truth. I know it's out there. I read it between the lines. I'm not holding my breath. I am content, at peace, and with plenty of happiness sprinkled in between.

.............

What now

This is the moment in the dream when I have reclaimed the jewels and the moment the dream ends. I feel the same, wondering what comes next. What will life be like once the skeleton has spoken and the priest has disappeared? I am still standing out here in the snow by myself, but older and aware enough to play in it while it lasts.

2:57 a.m. - 2024-11-15

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