Abuse Hides in the Dark. Turn on Your Light.

Gnawing Hurt-My Reality Counts For Something. Right?

Woman with long veil floating in the breeze with the sun going down behind her. She is mourning, a gnawing hurt.

I consider my dreams to be valid thoughts. Of course, like all thoughts, interpretation depends on your perspective. Nevertheless, dreams have the ability to take me out of my normal thought process and present information in a newer (if more symbolic) format.


I had a dream. Will was dead. I was grieving for Will. Or was I grieving at all?

That describes the entire feeling of this dream. I WAS grieving. But Will wasn’t dead, I don’t think. I just had the feeling he wasn’t dead.

I was trying to get the boys and some other kids ready for school, overcome with grief as I was. The kids were running late and not listening to me.  At one point, Eddie said, “I’m doing this because you PISS me OFF!” I was so hurt.

Hurt added to hurt.

Someone who works with Will and the guy’s wife were standing around in this church I was hurrying the kids from. I hurt so bad, I just asked him if he knew Will had died. He said he did. I said that Will respected him; the guy was indifferent. He didn’t care that Will died. Seemingly more important at the time, he was indifferent to the fact that Will respected him. He didn’t care. He was unmoved.

Walking through the parking lot, my first crush saw me. He came to me, said “I heard about Will” and gave me a hug. But it wasn’t a real hug – it was a show hug. He was ready for me to move on, but today was a bad day – I couldn’t move on. He did this in front of two people who knew [my first crush] wanted to “get with me” and they nodded in approval of his effort. I didn’t buy it. I saw through it and went straight back to hurt.

My Reality Counts For Something. Right?

The dream ended with me and the kids eating breakfast in a restaurant. We were all going to be late for something else. I cared about being late, but I decided that I was going to “make” them eat something. But it wasn’t out of caring – eating something was a punishment. They didn’t appear to be grieving anyone and I thought their reactions were out of line with my reality. I thought they should miss their dad, but they didn’t.

They were late, it seemed to me, because they were upset that I was grieving. It was a complicated thing between them and me. And all I really did this whole dream was hurt. All I really felt was a deep, gnawing, full-body HURT.

It was agony. Maybe it was agony because I was hurting ALONE. Just like now, I alone hurt for this marriage, for my husband, for my children, and for me.

Featured photo by Benjamin Lehman