Carnegie Mellon:
Choose a significant event in your life that had a large impact on you, whether good or bad. How has this event changed you, taught you, or made you a better person, and what have you ultimately learned about yourself?
I've never really felt this way before, so insecure, so belittled, and so insignificant. I didn’t realize it then but I woke up crying touching the tear that rolled down my check leaving a little trail down my face. And when realized that I was crying I remembered why, and I couldn't stop... The tears over flowed past the rims of my eyes and distorted everything around me. I've never been so emotional in my life and it was all because a dream, that was a stepping-stone that tripped me and made my whole life fall apart. This dream was so real and hit me so hard it knocked he wind out of me, and I felt as if my heart would give out. This dream, in a way, came true, and I could almost remember it all so vividly. But so it seems as if it’s fading away into a memory.
And so starts the memory of both the most beautiful yet the saddest dream of my life...
We were standing there at our special place, our tree in the field of Kalakaua. His left hand was in my right, ... I could still feel the warmth. It felt like an early winter morning, the winds blowing sent a chill down my spine and I shivered. He looked down at me as if he felt the tremor. I could feel the warmth of his smile. The way he just makes me melt inside. I can just feel the rush of emotion he just.... what's the word.... emits. He just emits.
His face against the background of the sky just took my breath away. The morning glow and lightness, gradient colors from dark blue to light, the oranges and pinks of the feathery cirrus clouds. The beauty of this dream and my happiness and over all delight made me think that this dream was going to be a good dream, a happy dream, a dream that I’d love forever and always.
With his hand still in mine, he pulled me into his arms and wrapped them around me, and hugged me in his childish way that he's always does and always makes me laugh. Laying his head on mine, we just waddled around, in a little circle. I just felt so light, feeling the warmth and happiness of his emotions surround me
Suddenly the whole feeling just changed in nearly an instant. The clouds rolled and morphed... As the gloom came, all grew silent, no laughter, no smiles, all emotion stopping us still in our tracks. We watched as the gray clouds covered the light sky, overrunning the joy of those earlier moments, taking over all scenery, that wind blew stronger, so clean, and so clear. In that very moment instant, I knew rain. Almost psychic, I looked up to the sky, and light rain began to fall, and I smiled.
I've always liked the rain, so brisk, so clear, almost as if it cleanses the mind. The rain drops everywhere on top of you, and can feel drops hitting your warm face, feeling a little cool, but as the wind blows, taking your warmth away but leaving you there with an icy feeling that leaves you on edge; aware.
I turned to him smiling, but he just stood there staring at the sky, watching intently, a stern look on his face. The smile that was once on my face had disappeared and in place stood concerns.... what could be wrong?
I tugged on his sleeve to draw his attention. He looked at me despair contorted his face, sadness in his eyes, and the gray sky surrounded him, and water just dripping from his face and hair. He let go of me and lightly shoved me away. I no longer felt his warmth as the wind and rain hit me like driving behind a car on a dirt road with the windows open, little pebbles hitting my face. It felt so empty, nothing but me.
I tried to hold myself, keep myself warm almost holding myself together but.... it wasn't the same. I looked at him trying to understand why, but his eyes, they gave no answer. I walked closer to him, pace by pace, to get him to look me in the eye, but backwards he walked away from me, unable to look at my face.
It grew from light rain to heavier. Past the tree I couldn't see the mountains; I looked around me and saw no houses, no gate, only us and our tree. I reached out for his hand, with my index finger I felt it, but he pulled away. I felt so helpless.
I wanted to ask "why?" but no words came out, as if drowned out by the rain. No matter how much I tried he could not hear me, and I could not hear myself. I was mute but my eyes said it all. He finally looked at me; I saw the feeling of sadness, concern and regret all in his almond shaped dark brown eyes. I saw that he wanted to hold me. I saw the hesitation as his arm reached out, but he thought against it. I was shocked, as his arm went slowly went down as I was reaching for it. He wouldn't look at me as he turned around and walked away. His hand in his pockets, his gloomy stature just faded into the fog. I was left there with the, alone.
He had no idea how much that hurt me; he disappeared in the fog that surrounded us. Running after him was hopeless because I couldn't move no matter how hard I tried. My legs felt cemented to the ground and I was left with nothing else I could do but just collapse and I did. I collapsed onto my knees and cried but no one could see the tears with the droplets falling all over my face, no one heard the sobs or my cries with the storm clouds cry. I was lost and forgotten in the rain and the fog... just abandoned... He never came back.
And now, were back at the beginning. This was one of he most painful dreams in my life. It felt so real, so unbelievably real.
I woke up with a cold sweat, and tears across my face and found myself unable to stop. Unfortunately this wasn't as quiet as the dream. It was 7 o'clock in the morning and for about an hour I cried into my pillow. It was just so real. I sat there thinking about it, lost in my thoughts, and devastated that that would happen, even if they were a dream. Why do I remember? What did it mean? I scribbled everything that happened, thought and reread....
My emotions pained me. The thoughts of being abaondoned, and never being heard, they scared me... Especially at that time, he meant the most to me. Thoughts of that dream always clouded my mind, my arm reaching out to the clouded figure in the fog, and the fact that he never came back did the worst to me. It made it hard to trust him again, the dream was so real, and it made me think that I had to do everything in my path to keep him here with me.
In a way, he did abandon me; we were drifting apart, and with the fact that we were in different schools, that made it harder. Our too different personalities clashed, we got into arguements about attention, our annoying hobbies, and our schedule. He saw me as a stressed out work-a-holic. Don't ask how... I really don't know. I saw him as an emotional slacker, that looks for the easy way out. He saw me as a light eater that put way too much on their plate. But thats just an example, I really do eat a lot and I'm not kidding. I saw him as a layed back rocker hippie that sat on a bean bag chair that let life go by. I think that the only real thing that attracted us to each other was looks and a sense of humor.
I remember a time in sixth grade that i could just look across and he was at eye level. By eighth grade he just shot up, now I always have to look up. I was always telling him "Grow shorter!" whenever I saw him.
He would always tell me a different forceful idea to do that, because really, unless he's like 60 years old, he really couldn't. " I told you, just drop a hundred ton block on the top of my head. That should do the trick."
And I would always answer, "No, thats too much work for me. You do it." And we would have this playful little arguement that would always end in him patting me on the head, and me leaning on him and using his arm as a pillow.
Now it's so different, it's so much harder to be normal around him. I found myself being the one left to call him, and he was alway tweaking on his video games, Call of Duty 4, Rockband, Resistance. It was always me hearing gunshots over the phone, and hearing his brother saying " Head shots again?" and I just groan over the phone, tired of fighting over attention with his video games. Once he left me on hold for almost half an hour. I had to hold my earphone to the mouthpiece of the cellular, turn up the volume of the CD player, and play a screamo song for almost a minute before he realized that I was still there. The next thing that came out of his mouth apauled me, "Oh! I'm so so sorry, I forgot you were there. "...
I guess, that dream really was preparation for the real thing. It really was a hard blow, to knock me down to prepare me for the harder one that would hit me worse. It's like playing with nylon strings on a guitar before you go to steal strings. Nylon strings hurt, especially if you played as long as I did, but once you get the callus there it won't, but if you start playing steal strings from there, your calluses actually get cut, and you can actually feel the the string digging into your skin and cutting it, breaking your calluses that you tried so hard to build up, and making harder ones that last longer. It made me rethink our whole relationship, and made me rethink what I'm really afraid of. Did I really love him? Or was I really afraid of being alone? Did he really love me? Would I feel the same if it was someone else there? Why did I stay with him if I knew that the relationship wouldn't last? Did I really hope it would? Or was I just living in the moment? Was I scared to just cut it there? What did I really see in him? How did I really feel? And why did I keep having these doubts?
The dream made me want to be more independant, because I knew he wouldn't be there forever, and he might just leave me crying in the mud, the rain, and alone. All this came from a dream. No, a nightmare, but this really had an impact on my view of my reality. This just makes me wish I could remember more, but it also makes me scared of another beautiful dream turned horrible nightmare.
