Mar 18

Mar 18 I Woke Up Out My Sleep Crying This Morning

T.K.

My aching heart and cold tears woke me out of my sleep a few minutes ago, …over a person I don’t even know, or doesn’t even exist.

After waking, it took me about 15 minutes to calm myself down. Then I decided to pick up this smart phone, open the Squarespace app, and get whatever this is out.

(Sidenote: Back during my freshmen year of college, I raised my hand in class when the professor said that every person has dreams when they sleep. “Do you mean every person? Do you mean every night? Or, do you mean most?” She responded that she meant what she said. I went on to inform her that this can’t be true because I don’t have dreams. I remember having had dreams once upon a time, but these days, I don’t. Various people in the lecture room began agreeing with me. She then did the real informing. The professor let us know, that those of us that think we don’t have dreams, do; we just immediately forget them and that’s why we think we don’t. Dreams are a part of the human brain’s sleep cycle. Everyone has them. She offered a suggestion. “Try writing down what’s on your mind as soon as you wake up.” Ever since that Psychology 110 class, I’ve kept a little notebook and pen beside my bed, even when all it does is collect dust. I guess this personal blog entry is serving as that pen and paper this morning.)

It tore me up to leave this baby that doesn’t even exist.

I’m not sure where I was, nor why I was there, I’ve already forgotten the rising action, but there’s still a tightness in the center of my chest from the denouement.

I close my eyes to fight back more tears as I type this.

Oops. There goes another one, making its way from the outer corner of my left eye, across the top of my cheekbone, slipping past my sideburns, now rolling down my neck, closer to my beating chest.

I don’t know why I’m so hurt behind a girl that I don’t know.

Okay. Let me tell you the little I do remember about her and this dream.

I was somewhere unfamiliar, traveling in a new place, it seems. There was a girl there that I’d met in L.A. thru a mutual girlfriend. Her name is Lo, and back when I’d had a productivity brunch at My 2 Cents, and we were talking about our goals for our budding brands and businesses, she talked about saving for her upcoming month-long travel across foreign countries. So, Lo being present in a dream about traveling makes perfect sense.

It was a large space, almost main-gym-for-the-pep-rally type large, but larger, yet smaller than a convention center. While not being too crowded, it was filled with adults and children. I didn’t pay much attention to the other adults, as I was consumed with the children. We played and had fun, and they were happy, and it made me happy. It made me happier. It was as if I was somewhere else in my travels before making this stop, and this made an already fantastic trip better.

I wish I could remember more about the good parts. It felt so good. I wish the good times lasted longer.

“Come on, T.K., we gotta go,” or something along those lines, Lo said in her thick DMV accent.

I don’t want to leave her.

“T.K.!”

I ignored the nudging for us to leave as people around me gathered their belongings to do just that.

Everything was moving so quickly, yet so slowly.

I was standing there moving in slow motion, my feet in an open stance. The right side of my body towards the door, and my girl that had already made her way to it. My right arm was slightly lifted, and my right hand was open with my fingers spread in a way that says “here I come,” and the index finger lifted a bit higher than the rest as to say, “hold on.” I was trying to make my way to the door, but my left side anchored me.

My head slowly swiveled its gaze from the exit across the room. My heart began filling with rushes of blood like water thru the seams of the Titantic.

I couldn’t move. I tried to move, but I couldn’t.

I grew emotional as everybody cleaned up and picked up and got ready to go about their day as if nothing had happened here.. as if nothing was happening here.

Everyone was normal, but there was so much happening to me.

Chairs getting folded and stacked. Tables being broken down and rolled out.

Children were being sent their various ways. The room had cleared out, almost completely. All that was left were a few employees.

I don’t know if there’s such thing as a whispered scream, but that’s what I was doing.

What about her?!

All of you are moving, and cleaning up, and going about your day, but what about her?!

Hello?!

You don’t see that one table still up with a baby laid on its back?!

What’s going on?!

What’s going to happen to her?!

Do you have a place for her?!

What are you doing???! HELLOOOO!!!!???!

(Darn, there’s another one. And it dropped so heavily, it didn't do the slow roll scenic route.)

I’m asking questions and no one is answering. People are walking right past me, as if they don’t see me, as if that don’t see her. But they do see me, and they do see her. They simply don’t care. I catch a glance and an eye-roll. Then I see a lingering exasperated stare.

These people are just trying to get off work and I’m holding them up because I don’t want to leave.

Okay… Come on. You have to go.

I’m trying, but it’s as if my muscles had atrophied. They weren’t working. They weren’t moving my body towards the door. All I could do was stare towards her.

I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want to leave her.

NO!!!!

You ever played freeze tag as a kid? You know how you’re frozen in whatever position you’re in when the person that’s “it” tags you? And then as soon as a free person touches you to unfreeze you, you blast off?

All of a sudden I could move, and I ran to her. I knew I had to leave and I knew I couldn’t take her, but I had to tell her bye one last time.

I slowed down right before approaching her, in hopes to not startle her.

“Hey, my baby!” I said with a huge, happy smile. She smiled back at me, happy to see me again. “I love you, okay?” I leaned down to her little face.

I love you.

I snuggled my head right above hers, looking down at her from centimeters away, doing narrow, quick sways from left to right.

I held it together for her. I didn’t want her to think that anything was wrong. (Though something was indeed very wrong, I didn’t want her to know it.)

I gave her a whole bunch of little kisses as I let her hug my neck.

I felt security looming, and quickly decided it would be best to move on my own, to avoid her having to see an ugly goodbye.

“You be a good girl for teetee, okay?”

“Otay,” she responded in her purest innocence.

A layer of enamel could’ve come off how hard I clenched my teeth to force a smile as I had to walk away from this precious baby girl that no one was there for.

More. More. More.

My legs began to tremble and my knees were on the ground before I could make it out of the door good. I broke down.

“T.K.?!”

I was sobbing.

Who’s going to bounce her on their knee throughout the day? Who’s going to take their fingers and talk to her as they wiggle her toes when they bathe her? Who’s going to keep her baby soft skin soft by teaching her how to moisturize it nightly? Who’s going to nestle her into their neck when she cries uncontrollably, not because she’s hungry or had an accident, but because she needs some tenderness? Who’s going to go beyond “doing their job”?

Writing this out, reliving this dream, I’ve given myself a headache from tension tears have caused.

I had a dream about a little girl that needs love she doesn’t even know she needs.

She’s not even fully aware of her existence yet, but she needs kindness and affection and nurturing, in that highly impressionable and adaptive stage of life she’s in. It hurts me more than it hurts her because she doesn’t even know it yet. But I know it. Even if she doesn’t remember it, I know it. I know she needs to be shown unconditional love at the start of life to give her a chance at life, a happy life, a productive life, a mentally and emotionally stable life. Or else, when she becomes her own adult, she’ll have to fight for it every day of her life.

But hey, why am I going on about it? I don’t know that girl. She doesn’t even exist.