Last night I had a dream that I was held by one of my closest friends.

I was not a child. I was myself. Full grown, adult woman. She held me in against her, in her lap, and stroked my hair.

In that moment, in that experience, I just knew what it felt like for another person to say:

“I am here. And I will never leave.”

I, like you, have experienced my own level of abandonment. We’ve all experienced it at some level, whether by a parent who was there and then wasn’t, or a boyfriend who promised to love us forever and then just…couldn’t. Or by friends who changed their minds about being best friends, and then became Silver Rutherfield’s (or whoever’s) new best friend, and we became a distant second.

Maybe you are one of the shining rare few, who has known their whole lives, that others will always be there for them… and that you are never alone.

The rest of us may still find ourselves grappling with the “whys” of these abandonments, or with the inevitable sense of hurt and betrayal that remains, plaguing us in every encounter…Will this person leave us (or reject us), too?

When we are children, and still impressionable, we will often personalize these experiences, making them about us and not about the other person. Not understanding the non-personal nature of reality, we may decide that who we are is something not worth loving. Not worth sticking around for. Not worth really giving a damn about, really.

I know, because I’ve been there, too.

You’re not alone.

The thing about the sweet innocence of being a child, is that children really, truly need us. They need us to tell them why the sun goes up and then goes down. They need us to witness caterpillars crawling over field grass with them, crouched at their ankles inspecting. They need us to hold their hand and walk with them, sometimes, with nothing else in our hearts except attention. With nothing else in our minds except presence.

Children need us to hear them, to love them, to cry with them, and to know them. And we are these children.

For a long time I thought, “Okay, one day I will just grow up, and all this will be behind me.” I will be able to put away all of this childishness, I will be able to grow into an adult.

But my childlike self followed me everywhere I went. She is me, and contrary to the many stories I hear about parenting our inner child (as if she is something we have locked in a cupboard deep in our core, who we drag out when her banging becomes too loud, and try to be understanding while secretly being judgmental), our inner child is us.

Do we ever really grow up? I’m not so sure. I think we just gain a lot of skills, so that we learn to do things better.

We learn to walk this path with a little more trust and a lot less fear.

We learn to hold our own hand when we are scared, or when we need to just pay attention to the surging feelings inside.

We learn to crouch in the grass and watch caterpillars, because that childlikeness inside of us doesn’t ever really get sick of the things in this world that are miracle—and just about everything in life is part of it.

We learn to stop neglecting her, because she is part of who are, and who we are needs us to give a sh*t about who we are. Who we are needs holding sometimes, whether it is our own hands running themselves over our own soft skin, kneading away the knots and fear and doubt, or our own voice humming down into the pit of our stomachs, allowing ourselves to ease into that feeling—whatever it is—that is taking the form of tension in our gut, in our arms, in our bellies. Who we are needs our own confidence in ourselves, in our own ability to understand our own importance in the grand scheme of things, in our own non-theoretical-ness. In our own full, present existence, in the here and now.

A long time ago, when I was studying dreams and dream theory, I came to understand that the figures in our dreams are rarely separate. They are merely forms and shapes we take for ourselves that embody something we feel. They are proof that we are not separate, because in our dreams, when our logical minds are taking a break, we imagine ourselves to be our own sisters, our own friends, and we feel integrally what it is to be them.

Last night, in my dream, as my friend held me, showing me what it felt like to know another person would never leave, I knew in that moment what it feels like to know that I, too, will never leave. And maybe I was coming to know that feeling for the first time. Knowing that I will be there for always, no matter how scary or confusing the moment is, or how much I want to distract myself away from it, finally: I will stay.

And maybe my friend is demonstrating that for me in real life (or subconsciously at some pseudo-spiritual level), and in my dream it just clicked into place. Or maybe, just maybe she reminded me of who I really, really am… stable, unmoving… never leaving. Like her, in that moment, always saying to myself:

“Psalm. Shh, Psalm. I am here. I am here, and I will never (ever) leave.”

This is the beginning.

 

Relephant Read:

If You’re Feeling Lonely, You’re Not Alone: Powerful Video on You & Social Media.

 

Author: Psalm Pollock

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: bronx./Flickr