I used to wonder where all my thoughts would go when I fell asleep. Where reality would meet your dreams, where you were able to lose yourself in the one thing you ever truly wanted; love.
As a child, I would curl up in bed, my feet slightly hanging out of the comforter and close my eyes as tight as I could praying God would allow me to have the dreams I wanted. Sometimes it didn’t work, sometimes I would wake up realizing that a dream about my friends or a huge midterm I had the following week was nothing like the fantasies I intended to see.
But sometimes, once in a blue moon, it would happen. I would wake up with a large smile on my face and go through the day as if I owned the world and everything in it. I would ignore a bad test grade, if I was ever to get one, I would laugh at stupid jokes which usually pissed me off. I can’t explain how a fantasy could change my reality, but somehow, in someway, it did.
Maybe nothing is ever as it seems. Maybe dreams don’t truly foresee the future. Maybe childhood wishes and prayers to God, never get answered the way we truly want them too. But then again, maybe they do. Maybe being successful was never what I truly needed; maybe none of it compared to being a wife, a mother.
There is this thing about children, your own children, that can cease any pain that has ever lived inside of your heart. The first time I held my son after he was born, I felt that any pain inside of me would have been healed by him. His smooth ashen skin that smelled of a newborns, his tiny fist which fit perfectly around my pinkie, but most of all, his need for me, a need I never realized could be so powerful. And when he died, I thought I would as well, for he was part of me. I molded him inside of me, I allowed him to thrive. For those nine months, I was his source of food, of oxygen. But the truth is, the moment he was born, he became mine.
Each of my children burn inside of me like fire, leaving their mark on my life. Carrie, although not mine biologically is surely mine by heart, always calling to see how I am, always making sure there isn’t something she can do to take care of as I did all those years ago. There is Eric, the strong willed man who is always willing to stand on the line for me, always willing to calm me and love me despite my many flaws. He’s like the angel willing to carry me when I fall. The one who may leave but always returns the moment he knows I need him. There is Samantha, although stubborn, truly wants what’s best, maybe because of the simple fact I gave her life. We may have a past, a not so good one at that, but she is my daughter, she is my blood and she loves me for that alone. Brady, another child who doesn’t have my DNA, only my heart. He nurtures me and takes care of me and loves me because I am the only mother he has ever known. And then there is Isabella. She is the dream that goes back to the fantasy of a perfect man, for her father is just that.
John Black isn’t perfect in the conditional sense. He has screwed up, he has failed. But for all intents and purposes, despite the messy situations, despite his sometimes stubborn behavior, he is the man I have always dreamed of. The man who would fight to save me no matter what the cost, the man who loves me for just being me; faults and all. He’s never ridden in on a white horse, never whisked me into the sunset. He isn’t a Prince or a Knight. But he is the manifestation of my dreams. He is the one who I will love no matter what the circumstances may be.
People will always ask you what your idea of perfect happiness is. I used to give naive answers; lounging around on the beach in summer, laughing at a movie, spending time with friends. Maybe it’s not naive, I don’t live the lives of others. But if asked the question today, it would all be so simple; sticky peanut butter fingers of my children ruining a new suit, runny noses and dirty clothes, screaming children on Christmas morning. It may not be glamorous but it is my love of life.
There are of course the moments with John. The hours of love making, so sensual and pleasurable nothing else seems to matter, breakfast in bed on a lazy Sunday afternoon, reading poetry on the couch with only the light of the moon to guide our way; it all comes back to that fantasy.
I don’t know where my life is headed. I have no idea what tomorrow will hold. All I know is that the dreams I used to fathom in my mind were simply figments of a life I believed I wanted to live. With the perfect man, the perfect career. I realize now, life is so much more than perfection. It’s about the imperfect things in life; the sticky handprints, the dirty clothes, the small mistakes that make life worth living.
The Jarlena Journal 