To the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep.

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget.” 

I have no peace in dreams anymore. When I was a kid, I kept a notebook by my bed, and I would write down my dreams as soon as I woke up. My therapist told me that's probably why my dreams are so vivid and why I'm able to recall them so well as an adult. Considering the nature of my dreams lately, that's not a good thing. 

I find myself dreaming often about my cat, who died in October.  The dreams vary but the end is always the same: she saves me. Something horrible is about to occur, Freddie comes to me and I pick her up and she saves me from destruction. I don't know what that means except that I miss her terribly. Maybe subconsciously I want to be saved, but in my heart and in my head I know there is no rescue. No one can save me but me, and I don't even think I'm worth the bother. 

I dream a lot about people who have hurt me, who I haven't seen in a year or more, who my brain tells me I'm better off without but my heart still hurts for the loss of them. So much so that sometimes I can't breathe, and I hate myself for having felt so much for nothing. I dream a lot about loss and destruction, and no small wonder - my life is one of regret. I have accomplished very little and I have wasted too many years to seek any sort of redemption for my cowardice.  

I am a cynic and the holidays bring out the worst in me.  Christmas only reminds me of my dad and all those old songs on the radio remind me of everything I've lost and everything I cannot or will not allow myself to have.  Every night I go to work and listen to my coworkers talk about their families, about what they're getting their husbands/boyfriends and kids. I think about everyone I care about and I have nothing that I can give them. 

I find no rest in sleep, no peace in waking. I would give anything to change that. 

“O night in which the stars feign light, O night that alone is the size of the Universe, make me, body and soul, part of your body, so that—being mere darkness—I’ll lose myself and become night as well, without any dreams as stars within me, nor a hoped-for sun shining with the future.”