"If only, If only..."

(The woodpecker cries, "... the bark on the trees were as soft as the skies.")

If only you had never been denied her... If only she had never been taken away from you, ripped from this life so cruelly. 

If you had never been denied her, I would never have been denied you. 

She was your first love and should have been your only. But fate took her from you, leaving you torn and broken, never to be whole again. 

You were my first love and never should have been. I should have met you, whole and at peace, never feeling the desire to mend the un-mendable. Like trying to fill an endless void, my love was pointless. 

Your heart is still with her, and mine is now with you. What a vicious cycle of heartbreak fate has laid out for us.  

I only hope it stops here. 

Dreams

Lately, my dreams have been dominated by you. If you aren't the center of my thoughts, you are always on the outskirts, just waiting to find a weakness in my concentration. Perhaps my dreams are beginning to mirror my waking thoughts. Never a day goes by that don't think of you. Maybe my mind has had enough.

The first significant dream was quite surreal. My dreams are often rather realistic but occasionally I know that I am dreaming before I ever wake. This was one of those instances. I just had a rather terrifying horse accident (being flung through the air and into a tree) and I was in the barn reliving my horror with others and the shock that I was not injured. You came through the door as if you had been there the whole time. I was delighted to have you with me and hugged you as soon as you were near. Then, I continued my cringe-worthy account of the accident. Moments later I asked the others where you were. No one knew what I was talking about. They said that no one else had been there and maybe I had hit my head harder than I thought. But I knew you had been there. I had seen you, felt you, hugged you. I knew you were real. And then I realized that, just as in my waking life, that you were still in New York. Hundreds of miles away and not coming back for two more weeks. I knew something was off before I ever awoke.   

Because that dream stood out in my mind so much at the time, I remember it with the most clarity. Revisiting it countless times kept it as fresh as the day it was dreamt.  All the others have fogged over in time since I did not bother to revisit them in my mind. 

My most recent dream of you was much less surreal but slightly more cryptic. We were in a dark movie theatre, holding hands as we often did. Cloaked in darkness, to me there was no one else, no one else mattered. Not even the movie. Especially not the movie. You extended a gesture so tender and trusting that, even outside of reality, I was floored by the significance.  You leaned towards me so that our faces were flush, cheek to cheek. I knew that for you, this must cause much pain. But I sensed no heat. No outward signs of the agony that must have been coursing through you like a white hot fire. You seemed as content as I. Then you whispered that we could never let them know. 

In reality we had done this many times. You allowed me to explore what caused you the most pain, emotionally and physically. I had the pleasure of caressing your smooth, soft face. Feeling it against my skin, against my own flushing cheek. I know that I hurt you many times, always by accident. It was evident by the crimson glow of your skin and the heat that emanated from it. But you never complained - not seriously at least. You always let me know when I bumped you by accident. But I cherished those moments of tenderness. I longed to hold your face, knowing that it was as painless as my own. I knew that it could never happen. 

So many months on from our reality, I am still dreaming of you. I try to forget, but, really, that is the last thing I want. To forget what we had. I feel the pinpricks behind my eyes travel down my arms to my fingertips as I allow myself to remember. Even my subconscious is longing for the happiness that came with those moments. I hope that, one day, my dreams will again be my reality. 

Odd News #7 :: Summer Makes Me Lazy

I admit it. Summer makes me a lazy procrastinator. Not that I am never lazy or that I never procrastinate [I do enough of that for three people, trust me]. Summer just multiplies my sluggish sentiments by approximately 250%. 

Anyway, now that I had admitted my innermost secret to all on the interweb, I will reveal to you, my dear readers [you do exist, don't you, dear readers? If not, I think I qualify as slightly psychotic, considering that I must be having conversations with myself], exactly what struck me as being so odd, I had to share. And that, my dear potentially-non-existent/in-my-head-readers, is a 70 year old Indian woman giving birth to twins.  

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. A seventy year old woman successfully gave birth to twins. This news, courtesy of the Daily Mail , was rather shocking to me. However, with IVF gaining in success and popularity, it should be no surprise that even women with children conceived the natural way still want to have children past their prime. Apparently way past their prime. 

To clarify, I am not condemning IVF as I am an in-vitro baby myself. Nor am I condemning women who chose to have children well into their 50's and even 60's. However, I am questioning the morality of bringing a child into the world whose parents may not live to see his or her first birthday.

Considering that the average life expectancy of a woman in India is 71.9 years, the new mother in question may not indeed see her twins take their first steps or babble their first words. In addition to that, she is doing good to even be alive at the moment. According to the CIA World Fact Book, the average lifespan of the entire Indian population is 69.25 years. 

When making the decision to bring new life into the world, I believe that you should consider the quality of life the child will have. According to the Daily Mail, all the Indian family wanted was a son. A son to inherit the wealth, the farm and get a dowry from his future bride. What happens if both his parents die within the next few years, his adult sisters are not willing or able to take on another child and he ends up in an orphanage? How is that productive, let alone moral? It is possible that the family will surprise us all, but I do have my doubts.

More power to her for taking on such a laborious task at such an advanced age [no pun intended]. I just hope that other aged women will consider their potential unborn child before spending thousands on IVF treatment. 

Revelations of an Emotional Day

Somedays I think I could be bipolar. Happy and excited one moment, depressed and crying the next. Yesterday was one of those days. 

I was listening to you talk about this house we passed and how you would never be there long enough to enjoy it. You have been talking about how much you want to travel, to get away from America, ever since I met you. Once, you also said that if you ever do have kids, you wouldn't want to raise them in this country. This has always made me sad because I could never let myself be that free. But yesterday, in my overly emotional state, I came to a realization. I have no future with the one person I love the most.

In a way, I have always know this. But putting it in those words just made it so much more real. You made me realize that I could never spend my life with you. You would never be happy in one place. I could never travel the way you want to because of my horses. It just makes me wonder what we are doing. If we should really go on together.

I don't think I will ever find someone that I love as much as you.