Collecting dreams in my mind

She became obsessed with dreams. She would always ask around if someone had anything they would share about dreams with her.

Once she met this woman that let her record this testimony: 

"My family was catholic.

So much guilty was put upon us.

As catholic, you were born with sin.

You are a result of a sin.

And sin pursues you for the rest of your life.

Still, as a child, I had some fun.

I could climb trees, ride bikes, play with toys, run in open spaces.

But I was visually impaired.

As far as I can remember in the past, I could never see things clearly.

I didn’t know that other people could see differently or even better than I.

I learned to live among shapes and shadows, squinting my eyes to recognize people.

Keeping my eyes closed most of the day.

Since they were already closed, I started with this thing of daydreaming.

It became a vicious habit that followed me for a long, long time.

Like a drug, a narcotic.

It shielded me from problems, neglects, abusers.

Not that all these things weren’t hurting me.

I was just not feeling them.

My heart was numbed.

When I lost my dad it was really hard

But even until today I’m not able to evaluate how hard it was on me.

I developed a survival instinct so strong that I always keep on moving.

Like a shark that needs to move in order to breathe.

Today, looking at my past, I feel that we, my family, didn’t spend enough time talking about the loss as we should.

We talked about how good he was, about how many people liked him,

About how young he was, how strong personality he had…

So many things were done to keep him around that despite saying that we were missing him,

We couldn’t effective measure how much we did.

Then life goes on and we just stop thinking. And after that we stopped talking.

I abandoned my father even in my daydreaming.

I remember that right after his death I would dream about my mom getting remarried with a man that was just like him. He would be back to redeem us, as if he was our private “Christ”.

Then the idea grew so absurd that I decided to give up on that.

And slowly his presence in my thoughts was fading away.

I got pregnant and I got married when I was a teenager.

I never spent much time living independently.

I was still finishing High School when I got married.

Although I was always surrounded by people, my life took a course of loneliness.

I had my solitary dreams with me all the time."

  

Then there was the cleaning lady. She had worked at hotels once. She would fix her bed and make sculptures with towels and blankets.  Once she was asked by the cleaning lady to write a love letter for her to submit to a contest of love letters. She gave her one of her teenager poems. She changed it a little to look like a letter. The cleaning lady won the contest. A dream fulfilled.