When I was little, I dreamed of being chased. Sometimes, the assailant was the thumbtacks hanging posters above the head of my bed - they would fly through the air, aiming to stab me, and there was no where I could run that they couldn’t follow. Sometimes the assailant would be an unknown man, and no matter which room I hid in, he would always be a step behind in. I would eventually escape our house and run to the neighbors’ house, but they would either not be home, or be unable to help me, and we would all end up running down the street for… our lives? It was never really clear what danger I was in, but it was clear that I was fighting for my life. The underlying feeling was never one of strength, always hopelessness and despair.

Last night I dreamed that I was running from a man who wanted to forcibly tattoo me with a stapler. But the stapler was broken; not only would he inflict harm on me if he caught me, but he was going to force me to fix the stapler first. I would have to repair the instrument of my own torture. So I ran through the rooms of my parents’ house - in the language of my dreams, the safest place in the world. I hid in the safest place I could think of: locked in the bathroom of my parents’ room. Two locked doors between me and him. But the doors didn’t lock securely, and as I heard him breaking through the first barrier, I had to climb out the second-story  window, and find a way down to safety. But even that wasn’t safe; he was waiting for me there, as well.

That’s about all I remember from the dream, but the feeling of nameless terror and dread stayed with me through the day. That happens to me, sometimes; it’s a feeling that’s hard to describe. When I was in high school, there was an eclipse of the sun. While the eclipse was at its height, there was full daylight, but the quality of that light shifted to something entirely different. That’s what the dread feels like for me, when it happens. A slight, undefinable shift in my perception. It isn’t dread of anything in particular; everything looks exactly the same, and yet completely alien. Everything behaves exactly the same, except with an underlying edge, as if in a nightmare. It’s the difference between a dream of unpleasant events, and a nightmare of the same events. In one, you can watch the story unfold objectively; in the other, the fear takes over completely.

It’s time: I need to move forward with the divorce, and the very thought of it makes me ill. I can barely stand the thought of facing someone who caused me such pain, let alone working with him towards our common goal - a goal I never really wanted in the first place, except out of necessity. Thinking about impossibly high lawyers fees makes me panicked. Looking at the paperwork from the summer, the paperwork I tucked away in a safe place and haven’t looked at much since, brings back all the anxiety and despair and terror that I felt then. It’s as if the feelings wove themselves into the very threads of the paper, and fused themselves in with the text.

It’s unfair that love should end in so much pain, and that anyone should have to face this alone. Of course, my friends and family are all with my in heart and in spirit, but no one can handle the details for me, not unless I pay large(r) amounts of money that I don’t have. They can only offer a shoulder to cry on, or a kind word, or their concern. Not that these things aren’t appreciated, but they can’t erase the pain or the fear, and today my heart felt like it was breaking all over again. All I can do is move forward as well as I know how.

I’m reminded of the stories of people who have performed self-surgery, without anesthesia, in moments of dire need. They have to do it, or they’ll die, right? But that can’t possibly erase the vague hope that somehow, the problem will solve itself, they won’t have to do something so distasteful. I keep hoping that this will just sort itself out, somehow, against all reason. But I know it’s that sort of thinking that got me into this mess in the first place.