They say dreams are one way the mind problem solves the things we never settled during the day. I've always believed it, but last night I had the most interesting experience imaginable. While circumstances come and go, there is one gnawing issue that has never left me, not in 6 years or more. Of course I'm talking about her. Why didnt we work out? Where did I go wrong? What should I have done differently? Like most people, I get visited by this type of dilemma on a regular basis in my dreams. But usually these fall into two categories: the very stressful "just out of reach" dream, where my waking life efforts to reach her are dramatized, exaggerated, and nocturnally relived; and the blissful fantasy type where are together and everything is perfect. You know the kind, the dream you hate to wake from. Well for the first time, my dream of her last night was neither of these. Instead what I got was what I can only refer to as a simulation. There was no fantasy, only a real, gritty, alternative version of real life. I retell it now to ensure it is not forgotten, because dreams have a way of fading from the waking mind.
Where to begin?
In this dream-reality it is still 2016. We have been married for years. She has really "let herself go" because she married me out of a sense of obligation, not out of any real passion. She is not careful in her self presentation, makeup application, or weight. She still likes me, but recognizes the lack of passion. I still love her. I'm content. We still attend church with her family, but not the one from real life. She walks with a limp now. One of her legs was disfigured at the ankle, although the dream did not bother to explain why. She was visiting a mutual friend who just got out of the hospital. I remember she tells me she has always regretted not travelling in her younger days. For that reason, she is taking a trip to china. She tells me that when she returns we will work on us. At this point i realize she has always been unhappy, being with me. While our deep emotional ties were real, it was always in such a way that i could make her cry. He could always make her laugh. In this alternate reality where she chose me, she chose sadness over happiness.
I compare this sad, breaking woman who i loved in my dream to the happy, beautiful one in reality. I am ... Really glad she is the happy, beautiful person of today, not the sad one from my dream. It took 6 years for my subconscious to process this version of the way things could have gone and present it to me in visual dream form. Either that or there is something to the "alternate reality" science fiction after all, and i was just granted a rare glimpse at an alternate timeline. I dont know. All i can say is it was unlike any dream ive ever had. It confirmed my conviction that i would be much happier with her. However, it seems to have conceded that she wouldnt have been happy with me. Up until this point i had never, consciously or unconsciously, considered this possibility. I always thought with enough love and trying i could have made her the happiest woman in the world. But who knows... Maybe i was wrong after all.
