feeling shaken up

song+ nothing
book+ nothing
quest+ figuring out talking again without tripping on my words
upper+ i'm awake now
downer+ dreams messing with my mind
attire+ starry pajama pants and a grey tank
drink+ milk

all my life i've dreamt along multiple timelines, peeks at possible futures and could-have-been pasts. i've never taken a dream as a SIGN i need to do anything, though when the same one repeats multiple nights in a row i'll look and see if there's something different i could do in my life to be happier. there have been constants, when i've dreamed my kids there have always been two, a daughter and a son. for a long time they were twins, then they weren't, and now i don't dream them anymore. when i was dating Kyu he was in most of my future dreams, part of the reason i considered talking to him about breaking up was i hadn't dreamt an us-future in a year. we're both happier now, so it was obviously the right choice. sometimes the almost-pasts screw me up though.

last night (last time i slept? whatever) i dreamed a terrible dream. i don't know when the timeline splintered from the one i've lived, but changes were considerable. i didn't make friends with Kyu or James, and i lost touch with Aimee much earlier, i don't know if i ever dated Lindzi in that line, but i know where i dropped into the dream i was alone and 19ish. for a reason that was unclear i was in a car with Rose and Jenni and there was a terrible accident, i recall a horrible screeching noise taking over everything, feeling like the noise was dissolving my mind, then there was nothing. something happened and i lost my hearing. otherwise everyone involved was fine, with just minor bruising, but the last noise i ever heard was that unearthly wailing tear of metal and then a heavy echo of silence forever.

the worst part of the dream was how long it had me trapped hearing ghosts of melodies that i'd never be able to get out of my mind. when a song gets stuck in my head, i listen to it and it goes away, without a sense of hearing i was condemned to phantom songs following me for the rest of my life. i had to relearn how to communicate. i could still speak, but unable to hear myself, i was even more self-conscious. i had to learn lip-reading and sign language, and for the lip reading to work at all i had to work constantly on my aversion to making eye contact. it didn't really help my already crippling social issues and general dislike for social contact.

i was stuck in the dream watching myself struggle, feeling so alone, because i had my family, but i didn't have any friends. i was aware that i was asleep, that i wasn't really there going through that, but nothing i tried woke me up. i was stuck for six hours watching my life pass a day at a time for about a decade. there was nothing good to take from it on waking, and even though i've been up for 8 hours since i did finally wake, i'm still so shaken that i've been unable to speak. the memory of being trapped helplessly deaf has left me effectively mute today. while i'm aware that i can hear, and i can speak, i'm still remembering almost a decade of not being able to tell if the noises i made were the slightest bit intelligible. it's harder than you'd think trying anyway. i'm not in a good place, and i don't know when i will be again.