You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

A few days ago, a friend told me I had an iron tongue. She was telling me about her roommate and how he wasnt really talking to her all of a sudden. She said, "He reminds me of you in a lot of ways. He's got an iron tongue, like you, and he uses it to push people away."

I felt "off" after that. Relieved that she knows how I am and is still my friend; afraid that if I keep this up, she won't stick around. I'm having trouble not being how I am. I thought about that a lot on the way home, and when I finally fell asleep, I had an incredibly vivid dream.

I was sitting alone on a high hill in the middle of the night, surrounded by forest on all sides. There were no lights anywhere but the sky. It was a lot like being in the Upper Peninsula, but even more isolated. In the dream I knew I was the only one around for miles and miles. There was no sound at all except for a faint melody, I could barely hear it, and in my dream I knew it was the stars. I sat there reciting constellations and after a while someone started walking up the hill towards me. Though there was enough starlight for me to be able to see the forest around me, the figure approaching me was dark, just a shadow moving up the hill. It wasn't menacing in the least, but I wasn't happy to see whoever this was. I wanted to be alone. 

The figure (still just a moving shadow) sat down next to me and nothing happened for a long time. Finally, I said, "I don't really know anything about stars." The shadow said, "Tell me what you do know about them." 

I told him that the stars are always there. Some are dying, some are being born, but the light will always be there, for as long as I live. No matter how overcast it might get, no matter how much it rains, the stars are always there and I will always see them again. I look up and nothing changes except their position. My whole life, the stars are the only ones who have stayed and will never leave. No matter how dark it gets, there is always that light, and I can always find it. Even if I get lost looking up there, I can still find my way back to something familiar to bring me home. Polaris, Betelgeuse, Castor and Pollux, the Northern Cross; someone is always pointing the way, no matter how turned around I get. 

I stopped talking and the shadow said, "Nothing up there can hurt you." I didn't respond and he continued, "As long as you live, there will be pain. You will suffer. You will be alone, but that will be your choice. There is no comfort in isolation, and there is no hope." 

I said, "There is comfort and hope in knowing that any disappointment or pain or anger or sadness comes from me and no one else. No one can hurt me but me."

The shadow said, "Haven't you hurt yourself enough? Don't you think someone is waiting for you with open arms?" I said, "No." He said, "How can you be so sure?" I responded, "Because no one stays, ever." "Why is that?" "Because I'm not worth it." He asked why I thought that was. I didn't know what to say to him. I started to feel sick, so I lay back in the grass and closed my eyes. I could still see the stars but the trees, the ground, the shadow, everything else was gone and it was just me up there with the stars. It was cold and .... soft, somehow. I felt cradled, I guess is a good word for it. Like I was wrapped in someone's arms, like there was no sadness or hurt or anger or fear anywhere in my heart or in the universe. I could hear that faint music coming from the stars and I turned over and that's when I woke up crying. 

It was one of the most lucid dreams I've had in a long time. I'm still surprised I can remember so much of it. I don't need to analyze the dream to figure out what my brain was up to that night; I need to get back into therapy. And I need to stop pushing people away. I don't know how to do either of those things right now, and I'm too tired and empty to care.