Your Memories Are Wreaking Your Heart
My perception of reality is way off.
I went to bed quite late last night. It was an insane week and by the time I crawled under the blanket, I crashed.
I dreamed of someone who I have desperately been trying to get over. It’s one thing when he makes a quick cameo in a dream and leaves, I barely recall when I wake up. But this time he was a key player.
I remember an operating room full of people. I remember sitting up, being loopy, wrapping my arms around him and calling him by his first name instead of “doctor” in front of everyone. I remember him laughing because of my drowsiness and gently unwrapping my arms from him. I remember him saying he’d be right back and he never did, while I waited.
My alarm rudely woke me up at 11 am. In a life with two small kids, sleeping in that late is unheard of. The dream was so real and intense that I slept through the reality of my noisy kids that morning.
That seemingly-real dream lingered and messed with my head for the rest of the day.
Perception is reality, however, there are some perceptions that we collectively agree are our realities. That two plus two is four. That there are numerical wavelengths for colors in a rainbow. That Chris is the hottest of the three Hemsworth brothers.
If there are realities that we do accept as fact, then why is it so hard to alter our perception when other people tell us the “correct” reality?
When someone tells you how you should perceive a previous love interest or why you should not want them back, why is it so hard to accept that reality instead of the one we created which causes us heartache? Shouldn’t jump at the chance to alter our perception as a survival tactic for our heart?
My kids often ask me for stories of my childhood. I’ve told them every snippet I can remember, like how my brother and I had an ongoing 20 year game of scaring each other or how we lost a hamster for a week who hid in a winter boot.
They asked me the other day to retell the story of a particular McDonald’s toy. As I recall, my aunt bought us kids a Happy Meal (my parents sure as fuck weren’t going to splurge on that) and it came with a flimsy Millennium Falcon that you could open up. We dumped our fries inside that Star Wars toy because it was like a large circular plate.
“Let me Google it and I’ll show you what it looked like,” I told my daughter when she pressed for details. And yet, Google couldn’t tell me anything. I couldn’t find that Happy Meal toy.
And then, I realized I was thinking of this plastic ridiculousness:

What the actual fuck. That is not a Millennium Falcon. My daughter laughed for an hour straight when she saw the picture. In my head, the memory is so real and crisp. And yet, I mentally Photoshopped a cheesy toy and replaced it with Han Solo’s starship. I altered the reality with my perception.
So why can’t I do that to protect my heart?
The last time I desperately needed to use brain magic to alter my perception was when I dealt with a stalker. Mark was manipulative and being an addict, he knew how to play all the mental mind tricks on me to get what he wanted. It took years and four therapists for me to get over the emotional rollercoaster.
My brain was trapped in a vicious cycle of loathing Mark and yet, I still longed for him. His manipulation pushed me down so that when he was sweet, it was like finally getting air after drowning. It shouldn’t have felt that good but because I suffocated, anything after that felt like the greatest reward. I used to think that I was a tough cookie, but that experience taught me that my brain and heart have no loyalty to my best interests.
Aren’t humans taught self-preservation? I know not to eat something that looks rotten or tastes weird. I know to stay away from flames and not walk on thin ice. Pain from heartbreak is very real and yet, I can’t will myself away from it the same way I can avoid sharp knives.
My entire life I altered my reality of an effing Happy Meal toy but I can’t move past a love that wasn’t mine to have. Maybe it’s because we never had a true ending. Or maybe it’s because we never had a true beginning; it’s like turning off a movie after the opening credits but the film hadn’t started. It would be easier if we had played out the relationship and I would at least know the plot before deciding it wasn’t for us.
Sometimes I feel like I have my emotions for him under control. And then I’ll have a vivid dream and I’m reminded that I don’t have much power at all. I have them camouflaged but they’re there. Clearly, I can’t Millennium Falcon my way out of these feelings for him.
Love brings the same body rush as heroin. The highs are incredible and when you’re without it, your body suffers intense withdrawals. I can abstain with no-contact but like an addict, there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about that love or how my fingers mourn in grief from losing the touch of his skin. I long for the conversations that went on forever and how I’d put my hand on his cheek when he kissed me. I repeat, “it was the right thing to do” with the same fervor of an addict death-gripping a 1994 “Don’t Do Drugs” pamphlet.
It’s hard to get over the addiction of a previous love when you can spend all day avoiding any contact but your body deceives you by having vividly-real dreams at night. How do you get over a drug addiction when your body snorts cocaine while you’re asleep?
Perhaps unlike drugs or shitty childhood toys, love is something that has the potential to be beautiful and positive. Deep down, we don’t want to alter our perception because we cling to the hope that we found the love we need. Sigh. I loved our love (yes, I’m going to punch myself in the face for saying something so melodramatically cheesy).
This dream happened two days ago. My mind is still in a spiral and it’s taking tremendous energy to not reach out and contact him. This is the longest we’ve gone not interacting and while I’m desperate for the human drug bump after the dream made me fall off the wagon, I have to respect that he’s probably well over our relationship, and hearing from me wouldn’t be welcome. I care about him too much to risk him experiencing this withdrawal feeling of panic.
I can’t think straight. It’s making me question the decision surrounding our breakup.
After a bout of insomnia rethinking everything, I remained exhausted all day in bed. Truthfully, I went in and out of sleep because I hoped that I’d be taken back to the dream and while laying on the operating table feeling loopy, he would come back to me as promised.
The dream never materialized and here I am, stuck trying to alter my perception to make my reality less painful.