I Tried to Make a Home Out of You

Dreaming with a Broken Reality

 Three years ago I had a very intense dream, but I wasn’t troubled by it because sometimes I dream vividly. Maybe it was the chocolate before bed? At the beginning of the dream I was dropped off at this abandoned home in the country. Alarming cause, Jim Crow. There were trees all around, no porch lights, it was dusty to say the least. The thoughts running through my mind still weren’t strong enough to cue the brakes on my Meg thee Stallion Knees. However, I continued to advance toward the abandoned home. It was giving Diary of a Scared Black Woman—I was shook, mk. It was dangerous and life for a black woman is already a journey of danger. Strutting up to the house I couldn’t help but think about getting back to my friends and family, possibly even staying a couple nights at their house, because this is madness.

As the dream continues, I find myself on the porch. The house appeared nice on the outside—somewhere I would live—but it wasn’t until I entered the threshold of the entryway and noticed it was abandoned. Again, I’m subconsciously thinking—bih, you need to take your ass on somewhere where there are other people! Being alone like this is unsafe. Little did I know the solitude was the cure.

I begin walking through the abandoned dwelling, dragging my fingers across the shelves to show myself the already visible dust, as I lay eyes on the barely unpacked boxes. Who would abandon their home?

Cascading from room to room, observing the ways in which this home has potential if they had taken the chance to develop what was already here. I make my way back to the living room where I find one chair and pictures on the shelf. I wipe the dust away, and to my surprise they were pictures of myself. Pictures of me smiling, in various activities, living a very fruitful life.

Naturally, I throw down the pictures and wake up because what type of witchcraft is this shit? I wouldn’t abandon a home? What was my brain thinking? I awakened in a full sweat and begin moving around my current home—all feels normal.

Unpacking

Isn’t it crazy how your perception of reality can trick you so strongly. Stay woke, cousin!

I prepared for work and my sister and I were chatting about just the strains of societal expectations and the overwhelming desire you feel inside to pursue your dreams—because, happiness, duh. Although, just as quickly as those thoughts bubbles out of our minds, they were once again suppressed when we had to check back into our realities and head to work because bills exist

Blasting my music the entire way to work I did my daily routine of going through all the reasons we couldn’t knock everything over and tell everybody to kiss our ass—we need this money. However, something changed that morning. I was tired. I was simply sick of pretending and my dream weighed heavily on my mind—was it me Jesus? Why do I feel entitled to abandon my dreams? Why am I not choosing to boldly live the life that I know is for me? Why was I willingly choosing sadness?

Cut to therapy.

I made an appointment with a therapist referred to me. I walked in being my normal self, friendly and personable. Things were going well, until she asked what brought me to therapy. I had no verbal response, just a stream of tears. We looked at each other and she said, “This space belongs to you, whatever you need from me while here, I am more than willing to provide. I won’t leave you alone to deal with these emotions.”

It took me a while to tell her about the dream I had about the abandoned house; but when I did, she said without a doubt, “Makes sense.” I’m like, hold on now Sistren—I didn’t secure my edges. Don’t drag me.

She asked me why I felt like I wouldn’t abandon a home? I’m like, girl, responsibilities. Like I have to pay for xyz—she whispered,”Aren’t you tired though? Aren’t you tired of all those responsibilities? It makes sense why you’d run.”

Famed poet, Carvens Lassaint, said his demons “found a home in what [he] once found beautiful”. It makes sense why I would dream about abandoning my life—I was tired of the responsibility and making a home out of someone or somewhere else felt natural. I was finding ways to disassociate myself with the sorrows I found in my life, unknowingly, birthing them other areas I once found peaceful.

In that moment I complete understood why I was at an abandoned home—I was unsure of anything that would provide self sustained stability and as a result I ran. I do it in my own reality.

The overwhelming feeling of being alone in my inability to pursue my passions and live a life of solitude was crippling my ability to be happy. I would host any and all events just to grapple at what I perceived at my achieved outcome of not being alone in my thoughts. Yet, the feelings remained.

Therapy helped me to see that it was not loneliness alone that resulted in the feeling to abandon my own happiness or comfort—but insecurity in my own choices and decisions. We were able to track the behavior all the way down to why I chose my current partner. I could live a life of complacency. I was now equipped with the knowledge and understanding that my life was extraordinary but too fearful to act on the emotion. I was crippled by my insecurities, so I partnered with someone who was also crippled by their feelings. They exist in your relationship never encouraging you, not tasked with a responsibility like your job does to you—just there. So I kept them around because it didn’t remind me that I wasn’t where I wanted to be, yet. They aided my feelings of discomfort that had now become a weird sense of comfort.

The dream was a literal manifestation of the feelings I was exhibiting in my everyday life. I tried to make a home out of anywhere but in solitude—learning how to develop self—but even those temporary homes felt insufficient; the full extent of my needs were not being met—because that space was not meant for my full growth. I needed to build my own.

To be so big and out of shape, I truly have a running spirit.

Knowing my feelings was half the battle but being new to therapy I just knew I could unpack those feelings, but what do you do with them once they are unpacked?

The Plan

After my therapist and I unpacked the many reasons why I felt like my current life was stressful and unsettling to navigate alone, we set a plan to address past trauma and the ways in which it attaches itself to the beliefs of my current reality.

She had me write out a day in the life of where I want to be—my highest self. Once the schedule was written on another piece of paper she had me go through each moment and plug in, breaking down those things I lack in order to live at the projected level I anticipate.

More to unpack, but until then, have you experienced the desire to re-create the events in your life?