#11
09/06/2024
55°49’15”N / 4°18’9”W
Type: Light Rain
Glasgow


Woke up coughing but still dreaming...a dream about coughing.

I was then walking through a woodland in the snow, falling leaves entering the violence of a nearby waterfall.

A song in the distance, or music took me out of the tranquility and back to the club (EXIT) I had gone dancing at with friends on Saturday night. No alcohol, just dancing. 

I thought, as I sat and had a break, I saw someone I used to know through the red clouds. Then I was with them outside sometime later by the waterfall. We sat on a bench and began a long conversation about how things fell apart between us. So much distorted pain, which I had let go. I had sat by this waterfall every day for months when my arms had been burned in a kitchen fire. I had transformed during those months, with the pain of losing this person who I cared so much for triggering this final complete collapse of self. All of the trauma and misbeliefs of the past, which had been spilling out like topsoil during our time together had been washed away by the jet power of this place. 

I asked them if they had noticed how much weight I had lost during our time together. I had lost nearly a stone in weight, I had cigarette stains on my fingers and my general self-care was that of a person who was deeply unwell. They said I looked much healthier, and younger, as I had put on some weight since then. They said everything was about my ex-partner, and asked if I was doing the therapy course I had planned to do. I told them about how I am training to be a psychotherapist and part of that is undergoing my own personal therapy. They asked if I had wondered why my ex-partner had cut off communication with me and if there was a correlation between them doing the same thing. But it was a case of bad faith really on their part,  as were a lot of things, of using that as a way of emphasizing and sanctifying their own position, I said. My ex-partner, who I never described as evil, had been unfaithful, lied about it, and when things unraveled, decided to ignore me for years. The point was that she had been in many relationships before me, and in every single relationship she had been in she had been unfaithful, then broken up and then ignored the person for years, and so the idea that it had happened again, as if to say, it must be me, didn't work, and I told them I thought they were using it in order to make a point, but there was no point. I had a right at the time to be upset about it and our relationship was nothing to do with them. I always respected (xxx) and although they were unfaithful, I always thought they were a wonderful and kind person also. It was something terrible in her past that made her run away from things, and we forgave each other in the end. I told them I felt the same about them, that I loved them, and always would, and didn't believe the things they had said to me were reflective of who they were. We were best friends, and losing them feels like losing a part of myself...but life must go on.

I noticed as we spoke that the waterfall seemed to slow down, and all bird sounds seemed to disappear. 

They asked me if I remembered once when they said, if we were sitting on a train opposite each other, as strangers, would we recognize each other and say hello? They said they wouldn't have let me get off the train without grabbing me. That was when I was well, I wished they had waited for me, as we would have been friends for the rest of our lives, and in all probability, we needed that. I told them I hoped one day we could talk and find a way to be friends.

The dream began to turn to white light after that, the waterfall consuming everything again, and for a second time in my life. Water, the softest of things as I have said, drowned out our pain and suddenly we were embraced in a hug. The waterfall had understood everything, all of our accusations, and made us see each other clearly again. 

I wanted to hang out with them some more but then I woke up, so made some green tea, and started my writing.