I have a recurring dream in which the car I’m riding swerves off the road and into a cliff. The details vary: sometimes the ocean shimmers down below; sometimes a T-rex rises up from the treetops; sometimes I am about to say something important, something that might have changed things if I’d said it sooner. I wake up just before the plunge, always caught mid-air, my heart in my throat and my throat a closed fist and my fists grasping for safety. I never get to find out what happens after—I assume it doesn’t end well, but what if, by some undeserved miracle, by some sheer stroke of luck, it does?
The other day I took a walk expecting to catch the sunset, thinking I’d timed it just right. Fifteen minutes in, close to 6:00, the sky was a dull gray, no pinks or purples or oranges in sight. I thought maybe it was about to rain, and if it was, that I should have seen it coming. But I told myself to turn a few more corners, take an unfamiliar route, and suddenly there it was: the pinks and purples and oranges. Fully formed and ready, patiently waiting for me to figure it out.
I’ve been trying to pay more attention. Noticing the cost of doing so, but also the consequences of choosing otherwise.
As you grow older, does forgiveness get easier or does it get harder? We’ve had years of training, learning to say it’s okay when someone says I’m sorry, moving on a muscle memory. But maybe we just feel things more deeply, hold on to things more. Maybe it’s us not wanting to forget any of it, even the ugly parts. Maybe it’s all the years finally catching up to us. In any case, there it is still, some form of redemption on the horizon. It just takes a different shape each time.
I have a recurring dream in which the car I’m riding swerves off the road and into a cliff. Most times I’m terrified but sometimes, as I’m cradled in the subconscious mid-air, I am strangely calm. In waking life all I can do is try not to build my days around the drop.