This reoccurring dream I've been having...

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jmagda
Butterfly
Butterfly

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Joined: 15 Dec 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 17
Location: NYC

30 Dec 2011, 8:25 am

I dream about my old house at least 2-3 times a week, and it's beginning to feel pathetic. I don't even think about it during the day, and it still comes back to "haunt" me.

I guess I should start with a little background about it. I grew up in an average middle-class suburb of New Jersey (I live in the UK now but that's a whole different story) in one of those post-war "cookie-cutter" houses (you know, those neighborhoods where every house looks exactly the same but just has different color aluminum siding). It was rather small, and there was really nothing special about it. My bedroom was tiny, and storage space was a constant issue in that house. It also was getting to the point where some sort of major costly repair had to be done every year because it was getting old.

I lived in that house until I was 27, mainly because I couldn't afford my own place, and was uncomfortable with dealing with roommates.. In the autumn of '09, my mom announced that she's going to sell the house, and move to one of those "55 and over" neighborhoods in a town that was about an hour away, and that I was welcome stay for as long as I wanted. I was pretty much fine with her decision because of the constant upkeep involved, and I agreed that "she couldn't live in that house forever". Plus, the new town she was moving to was much nicer. I helped with all the packing, and cooperated the best I can when people came to view the house (that was extremely difficult to deal with but I tried my best to keep my cool).

Then moving day came on April 10, 2010. I was fine up until that day, but then it ended up being the worst day of my life. It felt as if someone died, and I don't even remember feeling that sad when my grandfather died. At one point I remember sitting in an empty house with my cat pacing around and crying because he didn't know what was going on and why it was so empty. I was sitting there crying with the cat like an idiot, and just couldn't believe that I would never set foot in that place again.

The new townhouse was technically a lot nicer than my old house. It was much bigger with ample storage space, everything was pristine and new, we had central A/C for the first time ever, and my bedroom was huge with a walk-in closet and personal bathroom - something I never had. However, I was completely miserable. I was completely inconsolable for weeks, and rejected all these new luxuries I was presented with. I was scolded by family members who came to visit about how inconsiderate I was being and that I should feel very lucky to live in a place like that. However, I would have went back my tiny old bedroom in a drop of a hat, and can't even explain why. A month after moving, when my best friend invited me to stay over her house for the weekend (she lived across the street from my old house and we grew up together), I would burst into tears everytime I would see my house from her window, and spent the entire weekend sulking and crying. It felt so weird being in my old neighborhood, like it shamed me for leaving it or something. The reoccurring dreams about my old house started almost immediately after moving, and I had them every single day for that entire summer.

In September 2010, I finally got my visa to live in the UK, and I moved here in October 2010. I handled that move very gracefully, even though it was technically a "much harder" move than the first one. I was going to a new country in a new continent to start a new life, yet I was completely okay with it. I was actually relieved to leave that townhouse. However, the dreams still continue, and I don't know how to make them stop. :( I have them 2-3 times a week, and I wake up in grief. Then it takes a few hours for the grief to completely go away. I feel pathetic because I'm going to be 29 in a few days, and yet I feel like a 10 year old child who isn't handling a move very well. Plus, I'm in an entirely different country, living my own life completely away from New Jersey. Did anyone else ever experience something like this?