Pawn the Dream…

I woke up dreaming about you again. As always, I saw you in a different setting, a different place saying something that I hadn’t heard before, doing something I hadn’t seen you do before. These dreams are precious to me and I value them more than my actual days spent with you for they allow me to live an extra day, experience an extra moment with you.

Maybe I have mentioned this somewhere earlier too, but in my head, I have lived this life many times over. I have run into the same daybreaks and same evenings several times. I have walked this desert for decades now and have been watching sand dunes come up and take varying forms and shapes only to realize that at the end of the day, it is nothing but sand; nothing but arid land flanked by cacti and interrupted only by a wandering reptile. I plod on this beaten path which throws up a mirage every now and then, offering a scoopful of water at an odd oasis once in a while, scalding you during the day and freezing you once the sun goes down. The journey and the path and the scenery remain unchanged.

Your dreams are my escape route, my breakaway from any quintessence my existence demands, my recognition of who I have always been. In my dreams I carry no prejudice, no malice and no pain. I am no longer limited by a society or chained by the law of land. I float seamlessly between time, growing up and aging and feeling inhibited and young at the same time. The lines of the beginning and end cease to matter, time is just a unit and no longer linear. I fly between lives, between space and through the universe alike. These dreams give me the strength to walk another day, to bear this drudgery one more time.

But now, as we sit waiting for our paths to unfold, I have come to realize that these dreams have been my nemesis too. Had I not known these, I would have perhaps never known my misery and grind as well. I would have not known anything otherwise and been content with whatever life had to offer. I would have had no ambitions, no desires, no preferences and no deeper oceans to dive into. I would have lived happily being shallow and seeking pleasures like everyone else. Having a thought process and being able to translate bits and pieces about this life is not a blessing at all. It may seem to give you a purpose for life and you may be tempted to call it as your calling but in effect, all it gives you is eternal dissatisfaction. You are dissuaded, no longer interested in people or things around you and can never find solace in anything that this world has to present and share.

The disenchantment freezes your heart. It takes away your will to accept the days as they come and when you can no longer battle the sunrise and sunsets and you yearn for a refuge in your star gazing routine. You tend to wander off in your mind and then no longer belong to the people around you. The happiness is then worldly, the true joy rests within your own being and the saddest part of this story is that you rarely find anyone who can identify this joy that you carry and crave to share. Most likely you will pass on to another realm carrying these set of stories and the beauty inside you without anyone caring to open the petals and look inside you.

Almost everyone who claims to have ‘made it’ in this life, will talk about living it up, following your passion, seeking a goal and pursuing what your heart desires. People will try to motivate you, make you see a reason in making millions, sharing your possessions and gifts with the society and push you to try and be remembered for good. In the end, all you are trying to achieve is to keep alive a name that you were known and called by, for a few decades or if you are lucky enough, for a couple of centuries.

I don’t think that this universe connects us by our names or our occupations or the service that we offer for others around us. Maybe the silence inside and the looming voice in our head is the only call needed. I don’t know. I have wasted enough time thinking about what it could have been. Maybe I need to question why it even matters.

Tonight, I will seek a broker and pawn these dreams I have been carrying. I will meander back into the main stream and lose myself in the crowd once more. When the light shines again, and if it does that is, I will come back and secure these dreams again. If not, this is where we walk away and say goodbye.