The other night, I woke from a dream. The alarm clock on my bedside table lit a fluorescent blue and read 3:43 AM. I never have dreams, dreams that I remember at least. When I have dreams, I wake up without any recollection of their events, just a vague understanding that I had one. I remembered this dream.
I was walking down the street in some undetermined city. Just because I remember this specific dream does not mean its details are fully developed. It was quiet and dark, a winter evening. Everything was damp, but not the type of dampness that comes from rain, dampness from melted snow. The only light was from an occasional light post or a dimly lit-up window in the buildings lining the street. Without noticing, I approached a restaurant. It was the only place on the street to show signs of life. The windows were streaked with fog as the human interaction inside met the coldness of the outside. I didn’t walk into the restaurant, but I brought my face close to the window and peered inside. The space was glowing with a warm hue and every table was taken. All I heard was silence as I watched the bustling space from the outside. There were intimate conversations, lively interactions, people moving around, laughing, hugging, all dressed up for different occasions. Servers dodged each other while balancing trays and plates on their arms.
I looked closer and realized it was me at every table, different versions of me, different lifetimes of me. At one table, I was sitting with who I presume to be my husband and three children, one coloring, one playing with toys, the other doing laps around the table. They all seemed happy. At another table, I sat at some sort of business meeting with men who deemed themselves to be the most important ones at the table, saying their important things as I sat listening. That version of me faked intrigue. At another table, I sat alone in peace, reading a book with a glass of red wine. She was the version of me I felt most connected to. At another much larger table, I sat with my husband in old age, with those same three children but older themselves, joined by children of their own, one grandchild sitting on my lap. I seemed proud. Tables with famous people, tables with ordinary people, tables alone, tables with friends I knew and some I didn’t recognize yet, and tables with different variations of family. I was at each one.
Some versions of myself knew others as if they were from the same lifetime, stopping to talk to each other on their way to and from the restroom. I felt pleased to know future versions of myself didn’t live in complete disappointment of my past selves. I watched my different lives, occupations, and emotions all play out before my eyes.
Eventually, one by one, tables started to get up. They all filtered out onto the street, the cold shocking them after spending time in the warmth. When they passed me, they all regarded me in different ways, some passively, some more embracing, excited to have run into me. They all headed in different directions, some on foot, some in cars, their conversations bringing liveliness to the once-silent street.
This is not the first time I have thought of all the different lives I want to live, and all the different lives I won’t live. This is not even the first time I’ve written about it. As I lay in my bed, in total darkness, after waking up from this dream, I took one thing away from it. I recalled the different versions of myself living different lives, but they still knew each other. I understood that while I won’t live every life I dream of, I can live more than one. I can be many things at different times, and I will still know the person I was before. I can be many things, maybe not simultaneously but consecutively, and I finally felt at peace.
Highly recommend reading Midnight Library!!