My birthday never fails to remind me of how human I am and how invincible I am not. I prefer feeling untouchable, unbothered, and unaffected. Most days are that: a blur of events not worth remembering or sharing as a story. The days I find myself bothered are when I must manually maneuver my mind to stop the daydreams. Daydreams of what once was, a fantasy of what could be, and the illusion that I am “there”, too.

“There” could be anywhere: on the couch of which I no longer remember the texture, in the booth of a romantic restaurant facing someone in a wishful way, or vacationing with friends where sunscreen is the highest priority.

Some daydreams are innocent and I let myself get lost in those images of sunshine and happiness. Some daydreams make me incensed because I know the falsehood of fantasy and I curse the cruel reality of what is actually happening! These are the daydreams I know not to linger and entertain as it only further makes me delusional and devoid of the fact that I am not living that life.

But other times, I drink the juice of the fool, and I stay in that sphere of wishful thinking, unjaded untruths, and temporarily, my heart warms and sings the sweet old tune of naivety. A glass of daydreams keeps the blues away, I say. Swiftly, my vision blurs and the dance of deciphering the desires of my heart and mind begin. I stumble between the flashes of the long gone romance.

Why and how does the mind conjure a vision so vivid and visceral yet I find myself hugging no one? I force myself to be in that lavender haze. It is a lie I furnish for myself, ever so fleetingly, to escape the empty reality. Is this a dishonor I do to myself?

Reliving the fairytale beginning,
Relishing in the hope I stowed away, and
reveling in a face I hope to forgo then forget.

Once again, nostalgia lied to me. Maybe my mind notices this so it takes me for a spin.

Silly enough, on one strange afternoon, I took a sip of insanity and asked myself if you ever loved me at all. I questioned your intentions and wondered what was real. Too many sessions in solitude to count, I privately had doubts about you and our relationship. Those thoughts aren’t so private now.  I wondered if loving another was ever meant to be this confusing, cruel, or exhausting.

Was I a fool to love you?

…

It is embarrassing to mull over such a notion.

What a putrid and sobering imagination. I reject and eject whatever nonsense I had in my mind and vow to myself to not get drunk off memories ever again, a vow I often break.

Geez. I need to find a hobby.

To close off this piece, I’ll share this last bit.

One particular and unusual night, I stayed up to nearly 3 a.m., already in bed and my mind would not rest. It was strange as I find sleep easily mostly every night. Maybe it was because I was working on this post. Maybe it was because I thought about the paradox of feeling lonely even when I was in a relationship. That is one part of the daydream that I never include. So then, I did something when I feel worried or overwhelmed. I prayed to my grandmother.

When I woke the next morning, nearly afternoon, the emotional hangover I predicted for myself was not present. I was not drunk the night before. I was sober and I was bothered. In hindsight, I’d rather be bothered than bottle my emotions.

Here, I let my thoughts scatter and feelings fun free. Here, I allow myself to be vulnerable. Here, I am human.

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Thanks for reading! As I reflect on my daydreams and visions, I think of the past and the present. Presently, the freedom I have is so strikingly different from what I once lacked in a past life. When I share a post, it can take weeks for me to conjure up all my thoughts and fully flesh them out. I started this piece after my birthday and it is now December. Numerous draft savings and rewrites are part of the process and what I find is that by the time I publish a post, whatever state I was originally in, is one I am able to accept and let go. While my posts often are somber and not the most delightful, I can promise you I am not always depressed, friends! lol.

Humans are visual creatures. We can close our eyes and imagine a place elsewhere than where we currently lay. A new latitude and longitude on this ever spinning globe that we can pin on the map, mark it for memories, and check it off the list. But these days, I do not have to daydream of my travels, I simply pack and go.

As I reflect upon this post, I have my mind on the truth; I have something I didn’t before: freedom. And that is no daydream, babe. Tell me, what’s the price of freedom?