Number 6 always wins…

I had a very vivid dream while I was napping today.

I had 5 escargot to hold for you inside of a paper cone made out of florist paper filled with beach pebbles. I knew you wanted this and I went through so much deliver for you. To you. Or maybe it was my idea because I knew they would make you happy. I do not remember the details beyond the package and the destination.

I worked pretty hard to get to you, but was not rushed or desperate to be with you  I took a taxi, a bus, a train, a bicycle, kick scooter and some super fancy plaid doc martin boots.

I was relaxed and I sang as I made my way to you. The stress of these last months, years without you were gone. I no longer felt the weight of losing you. My heart was full of joy.

Not like when I’m awake. Not like a lead ball rotting a hole in my heart. Not losing my breath. Not having that out of body floating feeling when I remember how it happened and feel the loss of you.

I dreamed of hope. I would peek and run my fingers through the stones counting each shell turning them over and over to see the bounty inside. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

I felt proud to have been tasked with bringing these back to you. I looked forward to each piece of the journey. Every step, every stop, every peek, every count.

And then I was there. I knew it. I felt me smile. Radiant and full of love, I pushed through a fence gate nearly skipping down the path of white moonstones next to a grey blue stucco home.

I’ve been here before.

In a backyard under a tree surrounded with so many of those polyester striped weaved and webbed folding backyard chairs. People standing and sitting around a dying bonfire listening to the sounds of laughter and music.

I grabbed a beer, your brand. I hugged and laughed with people I hadn’t seen in years. Everyone looked so comfortable. So at peace. So in love with the simple act of just of being together. They seemed as delighted to see me as I was them.

Then I saw you. I turned to you with ease. My heart did not leap. There was no fear. No urgency. In peace I smiled and walked your way.

With you in my eye line, you looked up and saw me. You smiled as yor eyes met mine and waived me over. Your joy at the sight of me made everyone around us stop and smile.

I was not moved, or jostled in any way because it felt normal. It felt like I belonged there and I knew you needed me. I was satisfied with my journey and happy to have time to sit with you.

You reached out your hand and I reached out to it. You pulled me in to you as you began to stand. You wrapped me in your embrace and I heard that familiar Mmmhm that only you make. Your scent still so familiar as I breathed you in. And I was happy. Still content, still safe.

You asked me to sit with you and you told me how you were proud of me. How you just knew I would make it. I was still happy and not unmoved by the words or watching your lips make them. I’d heard it before though, often, and it was normal.

Then you got serious and you said that you had been thinking about how we fit together in this world. How time and time again we came back to the same place. How life only made sense when we were together.

I wasn’t looking at you as you spoke though. I was digging through the pebbles to find the shiny shells containing the escargot you had entrusted to me on my journey. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…

The pebbles fell through my fingers like liquid sand. I loved the feeling of it. Like pure water filled with your warm love. Then I looked up and into your beautiful eyes.

They always look through me.

I watched your lips again as you spoke. Your voice rattled across the flesh that covers my soul.

Your words; There has been love in my life but none like you.

One first love. One who broke me. One heartbreak I needed to be forgiven for. One I have forgiven, and then you, like no other. So rare like the fine taste escargot. You come to me like a rare delicacy. Surrounded by the cold harshness in this life, but you always manage to find the flowers and come to me anyway.

You are number 5, you continued. The one who has never asked for anything but love and I do love you. I need for you to know this…

As I watched your lips move and your eyes glow with tears as you professed your love for me. I turned in my seat away from you as you reached out to pull me back to you.

And I died inside as I realized it was a dream. I sobbed and those around me gasped in disbelief as I began to wake up. As the music died and the laughter faded. I handed the burden of these precious things I had carried to another as I turned back to you and said…

I may be number 5, but in this life we both know that number six always wins.

Then I woke up. Fully conscious. Crushed. Trying hard to breathe.

Grieving again I felt your absence so heavily. I’ve wanted to cry out but I was not alone all day.

But I am alone now.

I’m still awake writing all these hours later because the dream was so vivid that it has not faded. I am afraid to go back to sleep.