Because Dreams Have a Life of Their Own

Xavier leaves tomorrow. It’s a vacation he’s wanted for years. He’ll be traveling alone, overseas for close to four months. He’s a world traveler, constantly having the need to find home, when home has betrayed him so often. We’re kindred spirits that way, in many ways, yet the things we share in common don’t seem to be enough. I sent him a long text a couple weeks ago. Another text baring my soul. I’m sure he’s tired of them. I don’t expect him to respond. As a matter of fact, I told him I only desire a response if that is what he desires. I owe him at least that. I’ve released any expectation that he will ever want to speak to me again. In the span of my fifty-five years we haven’t had much time together but I’ve hurt him more than enough.        
       
There was a time we both had each other on pedestals. I believe that helped both of us survive for the last few decades. I’m not the only one who suffered through trials greater than me. Since we reconnected four years ago I think we both realized the dreams we had of each other were better than the reality of each other. I blamed him for feeling like that when I felt the same way. It wasn’t fair. A lot of things the past four years haven’t been the way either one of us dreamt they would be.        
       
If I could take back most of what transpired since my birthday in 2020, I would. Not just for myself. Xavier deserved a much better version of me. My liberation, my evolution, everything that’s happened to me these last four years I owe to him, yet he’s the one who bore the brunt of everything I couldn’t fix until he left this past May. He was right to leave, it was time for him. Had he not said the things he did during that last conversation I wouldn’t be where I am today. He may never experience the woman who finally healed. There was a time I would have changed my entire world just to be the woman he wanted. I understand now that no matter how much I change, I will always be me and I may never be the woman he wants, healed or not.        
       
Time and circumstances can sometimes change dreams. I believe who he found when he came back into my life changed his dream of me and after that last conversation, when my screaming about how much I loved him, when my blaming him for my bad decisions echoed down the hallway through my closed door, he told me he needed time to think about things, that this time my anger had gone too far. I barely heard him through my ranting. But after we hung up, after I lay curled up on my couch for four days crying and terrified to move after letting go of the rage that had consumed me for the last three decades, I heard the finality of those words and realized that this time I really may have gone too far. I also realized that was the first time since shortly after he came back into my life I had the courage to tell him how I felt. I wished he could understand the journey it took for me to get there and how much remorse I had for the damage I caused, how much regret I had for not being able to show him the final gift he gave me.        
       
It would be a lie to say I have finally let go. I’ve accepted what I wouldn’t allow myself to face but I also know that if I truly did let go I wouldn’t still be holding on to the dream. I’ve said goodbye to him so many times, I just can’t say it in my heart. I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know if I want to. I’ve examined and re-examined my love for Xavier every which way and more. I keep coming up with the same thing. I love the Xavier of my past. He saved my life. The Xavier of today is a much different man. Bruised, hardened, experienced in the ways of the world and in ways I can never relate to. He wasn’t a picnic this time around. He treated me in ways that no rational woman would accept, but he wasn’t dealing with a rational woman. No matter who he is today I’ve seen glimpses of “my” Xavier and because of that I have a sliver of hope that dreams can come still true. I also have every hope that the man I do know, who I believe still resides within him, can emerge and help him. He needs that. I’d be blind if I didn’t recognize his suffering. He would deny it, always having to be the ever strong alpha male, but I know him. I’ve always known him whether we were together all these years or not. It’s not lost on me that the man who I was going to live with and hopefully spend the rest of my life with all those years ago has never lived with anyone, has never married and has never had a woman stay in his home longer than two weeks even though he has two children. I heard the fondness in his voice when he told me about us, when I asked him to help me with my memories of us before they recently came back to me. He has needed healing as much as I. I have to let him have that. Even if it means he may never be back.      
       
I have to keep the realm of possibility open, however, when it comes to him, when it comes to us. Maybe there will be a day that he calls me out of the blue, maybe on his birthday, just like I called him on mine, thirty years after we last saw each other, after we last held each other, that he says the same thing I said to him; “hello, it’s me.” Maybe. I’m not going to wait. I have to live my life. But I no longer think in absolutes. I’m leaving the door open should he choose to walk through it. If he does I’ll make my decisions accordingly, but I can almost guarantee that I’ll do the same thing I did that day my senior year in high school, the day five years before we dated, the day that created a chain reaction that changed the course of my life. I’ll jump into his arms, wrap my legs around his waist and I won’t be able to contain my happiness (okay, I’m now fifty-five, with heath problems and I need more surgery on my feet, so it’s symbolic).      
       
Tonight I’ll go to sleep remembering the man who walked into my life when I was seventeen years old. I’ll see his twinkling brown eyes as he charms me the way only he can, I’ll see the eyes that I fell in love with, that drove me mad with passion. The eyes that were full of sorrow when I said goodbye, the eyes that shone through my darkness and saved my sanity, and the eyes that finally came back to me. And when thoughts of him boarding the plane that will take him to the other side of the world, away from the city we both inhabit, away from any reminders of me, as he searches for what he’s longed for his entire life and I dreamt he would find again with me, interfere with my reveries, I will do my very best to hold onto the best parts of our history and wish him well.