Under the Bridge

There's this one bridge by the hospital that She Who Must Be Kept works for. When she was still on site, I used to have to cross this bridge to get to a specific bus stop to catch a certain bus to go to the mall when I went to work with her.

I hated crossing over this bridge. I would always get distracted and look over the edge at the water running below. There was this seaweed that grew on the rocks. The water would push on it, and it gave the illusion of flowing hair from a swimmer.

I hated it.

I hated those rocks, and I hated that seaweed.

I have nightmares about these women in the water. Like harpies, maybe? These women would swim in a river, and sometimes their green, scaly faces would break the surface, slowly rising like some sort of glorious goddess.

And then they would open their yellow eyes, their black serpentine tongues slithering out in a warning hiss. And they all had flowing green hair.

I know, of course, that the seaweed covered rocks are just seaweed covered rocks. There are no murderous harpy women to pull me under.

I just don't want to take my changes.

Naiden Tahtien Alla

As happens with me when I have some kind of emotional upset, I've been having nightmares. It's not something I love, rather, I have come to loathe it. But a part of me maybe thinks that these nightmares, these blood curdling images that I see, all the people that I witness hurting and dying, and all the people that are hurting me in these worlds of make believe and misery--

Maybe they are important. Maybe they are Part of the Process. I spend a lot of time understanding the Process. And maybe hurting and being miserable, even in my dreams, maybe being beaten, raped, tortured, murdered... Maybe that's important.

This sounds so sick (but I have always loved owning my sickness. I've always loved claiming that and making that work with me rather than against me) but these nightmares remind me that no matter what's happening to me, it COULD always be worse.

At least I'm not being butchered. At least I'm not in a room where the paintings are weeping blood. At least priests aren't threatening to sacrifice me to Satan. So maybe, just maybe, these nightmares give me a little perspective. And it's when I lose perspective that I start having issues.

I've had an emotional upset this week. I lost my confidence giver, and so I am shaken and alone, and afraid, and broken. (He, of course, refuses to own the things that he has said and done to me, and steadfastly maintains that I am not broken. He maintains that no one breaks. This is a boy I picked up shattered and put back together. I suppose that is neither here nor there.)

So of course I've been having nightmares. However, in the midst of these nightmares, I had the most beautiful dream.

I was in this huge house, laying in a brass bed, with white sheets. This room was full of people, all sleeping in similar beds. I couldn't sleep. And a man, a tall, handsome man began walking down the row.

And he began to sing to us. He started to sing to us. It's in Finnish, but my best translation is Underneath All These Stars.

He was in love with me. And I would wake up right as he walked away. So he began to come with me and stand by my side.

It was beautiful. To be sung to sleep.