What they don't tell you is that when your heart and your mind are in disagreement, your body retreats into a dream state. At least, that is what happened to me.
The precise length of time I was in this dream state is something I can't decidedly say. What I do know is that I walked through each day with my eyes closed to the world. Looking back, I don't remember significant events or even the passing of time as everyone around me was experiencing it.
What threw me out of reality and into this alternate dimension? My heart wanted what my mind could not see possible. My soul fantasized this deep romance while my mind foresaw the pain it would bring. System shut down. This dream state was a place where my mind would be safe from my heart's rogue desires and my heart would not know that it had been imprisoned in a timeless land of shadows.
Revisiting the night when I threw my phone across the bed in frustration at his nonchalant response to my juvenile queries, I am sure this is when my mind kidnapped my heart and took it away to a dollhouse town where the people looked real, but you could never quite see the human in their eyes.
As I said, I can't relate the details of this period of time since I myself didn't truly experience reality. I can only say that months passed by while my heart was sleeping. If we travel one year into the future to the day that I realized I had been blissfully unaware of the real world, it is my hope that you will understand what I mean when I say my heart and my mind were in disagreement.
Scene: local coffee shop. I am in conversation with him. At this time, we were both living in fast motion; watching semesters fly by and feeling the strains of growing up, so our favorite pastime was reminiscing back to when we had the luxury of enjoying moments to the fullest without the worries of the world weighing on our shoulders. Recounting the earlier days of our acquaintance, I brought up a youth group memory, "I was there with my brother. I was looking for you in the crowd. Every time the door opened, I caught myself hoping it was you walking in, but you never came." He looked across the table and questioned me, "Was this the night that the group talk was given upstairs in the living room and then the youth played hacky sack in the basement?" I nodded my head as this was exactly the night I was referring to. His brow furrowed in confusion, "I was there. And I was looking for you too. I saw your brother, but I didn't see you." This discovery brought on a silent understanding of the souls that neither of us could voice. An accidental revelation. The dream state. Had we both been sleeping?
The best way in which I might describe how I understand this phenomenon is that my mind refused to acknowledge his presence because all my heart wanted was to catch a glimpse of his face. My soul ached profusely for reciprocation of the ghost emotions I was harboring but my mind had fashioned a blindfold made of the darkest night so I was blind to him and only him.
I wasn't frightened at the thought that I'd been sleepwalking for months, but rather that I couldn't identify the point at which I woke up. Did I have no control over the alien capacity of my mind? Was I so weakened by the pull he had on my heartstrings that I had given ownership of my consciousness to this alien energy that was my own yet ruled my existence unobstructed? I will leave this point of contention up to the reader.
YOU ARE READING
What They Don't Tell You
Non-FictionI love a boy. This is our story. No... I loved a boy. This was our story.
