Not Fading Away

Sometimes I feel like I am loosing some huge part of me, almost like I am fading (even though I know that is not true). When we first moved here I went to therapy. I figured I should probably go before I got married, and considering the new occupation I planned on...I discovered that a huge fear I had was fading away.

When I was a teenager I'd write about it constantly in my poetry through the metaphor of the abyss and the feeling of falling. Now, it manifests itself in my dreams. I have these recurrent dreams of trying to find my way home. I have to cross bridges with gaps (Evel Kneival style), fly off of large buildings over apocolyptic war-like scenes, ask strangers in dark, foreign places for directions. Through out the dreams I must get home. It I do not it is almost as if I will disappear.

Home, in my dreams, was my old house on 122 Woodhollow in East Hills. Sometimes, home is Philly. Always in these dreams I am so far away. I need to get back there. I have to or else. I think on some level I fear that people will forget me, or that I will loose myself completely. The feeling is visceral, part of my gut.

They say that houses in dreams symbolize your soul. My soul was unsettled, searching, flying threw the night trying to figure out a place to call it's own.

The last time I dreamt about finding my way home was different. In one part of the dream I gave the driver directions to Philly. Once we got there I did not know where to go. It finally was not home. In the dream home was Erik and Erik was at Wilken St., Houston, Texas. The dream felt like closure on some level. I think I have finally accepted being here (it took long enough).

Since we moved here I have gone through so much. I went to school, got married, had two babies, and let go of some much shit. I was holding on to something. I was holding on to home. I kept talking about Erik looking for a new job and how we were going to move home. I would talk shit to my friends about it here. I was not truly being...home, settled and happy with where I actually was.

Erik and I live in a great place. I am making friends. Erik just got a new job. Our house is small, but wonderful. I have a garden and even grow some of my own vegetables (though they are a bit bitter). I am able to stay home with my kids. I think I also thought that on some level that meant that I was fading away, but my career does not define me. Being at home does not mean I am fading away. My colors grow brighter, my light grows stronger. Perhaps I am falling though, but now I am learning that falling is not such a bad thing, in fact it is wonderful because it means that I am free. I am home.