Or was it the ceiling? I was in my bed, mind racing.
What was that? It seemed so... real.
A second earlier, I'd been asleep, dreaming of some mundane scenario. Suddenly, John walked into my dream. I was not expecting to see him in the private confines of my mind.
John and I had had a falling out about six months earlier. I'd joined his business, and things were not what they looked like from the outside. Or at least it seemed that way from my perspective.
You see, John was a great salesman. Not slimy — no, not at all. Talented. Charismatic. He sold me on a grand idea, and then the details didn't quite match up with what was promised. I assumed our dilemma was a miscommunication at first, but then the moonlight shifted, and it all began to look malicious from where I was standing. I'd ask him a question, and the words that would tumble out of his mouth were precisely what I needed to hear to make me think the worst of him. It was like an optical illusion.
It all ended with us furious at each other. I was so angry and upset and hurt. I tried to be rational about it and see it from his perspective, but nothing was adding up. I didn't want to be a fool again. I felt bullied. I don't like being bullied. I'm not the weak little girl I was in school. I had grown.
Or at least, I thought I had. I pushed back, and so did he — both as stubborn as each other, both unwilling to see the other side as we made the problem worse.
And so I left in a fit of fury, yelling fuck you in my head. It wasn't my finest moment, or my proudest, or my wisest. I'm embarrassed to even admit it out loud.
But as a result of our little falling out, I went and started my own business instead of joining someone else's. And that business led me here, to these very words that you're reading.
You see, I don't think I would have started another business like that unless my hand was forced. I was too scared and scarred after the pain of my previous one. I would, however, go to great lengths to disprove someone's preconceived notions about who I am and what I'm capable of. I don't like being put in a box. I like proving people wrong. The fuck you was potent ammunition for me. It was exactly what I needed.
And so John and I had a friendship that ended in calamity — each of us hating each other. But after we parted ways, I began to see the truth behind the illusion. He wasn't malicious. I was blind, and so was he.
I hadn't seen him in six months or so. It's a small world, and I avoided places and events where I knew he'd be.
Until the night of that dream...
In the dream, I walked up to John, looked him in the eye, and said, "I'm sorry. I was wrong." And at that moment, I felt lighter. I'd been harboring all of this anger and guilt and frustration. I wanted it all to go away.
It wasn't a coincidence that I seldom went to the doctors in my life, except during that ordeal. As soon as the situation turned sour, I somehow found myself in the GP's office over and over and over again. I had a stubborn, recurring infection. The pain I was feeling inside physically manifested in my body, and antibiotics were struggling to keep it at bay. Anger was like poison to me, and I was marinating in it.
...until the night of that dream. It was so vivid. It was so real. What was that?
I crawled out of bed and commuted to my co-working space, still asking myself that question. As I sat on the couch during lunch, I did a double-take. There he was. John. Talking to another friend just outside the window, where the office barbecue was taking place. I hadn't seen him in so long, and then he just happened to show up the day of my uncanny dream. It felt too coincidental.
In that instant, I knew what I had to do. I stood up and walked over to John.
"Can I have a word?" I asked.
He looked at me apprehensively. Or was it disgust? Hate? I don't know.
"Sure," he said. His friend returned to the barbecue to get another sausage.
I looked John straight in the eye, just like in my dream. "I'm sorry," I said. "I was wrong, and I'm sorry."
He looked surprised. He didn't return the apology, or anything. I guess that would have been nice for my ego. I thought we were both wrong, both blind.
But I didn't apologize for him. I apologized for me. And in the moment of that decision, the ball of anger melted in my mind. The infection that had plagued me for six months completely disappeared from my body.
"Water under the bridge," John said. "We've both moved on."
And we had. His business was doing well, and mine was heading in a new, exciting direction.
That voice whispered in my ear again. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
