The End

I always think about the idea of nostalgia. It’s probably because I have a terrible memory for my childhood. Just foggy snapshots, hazy impressions, and lingering feelings. But the feelings are real, no matter how strange and alien they are. Nostalgia is the longing for a time, not a place. And while my memory is only of images, my dreams are more vivid. My dreams have always been vivid, like being entirely transported to another reality. I have woken still sobbing from some heartbreak, I have woken with cuts in ny palms from clenching my fists, and I have had to stop myself from reminding people of an incident that never happened. My dreams are like experiencing another me.

And this was like a dream. A dream that felt strange and real. A dream of people dressed up and swirling on the dance floor. A dream of flowers and flowing creeks and beautiful stone walls. A dream of a prince and a princess kissing outside a castle. And I am there, standing by a warm fire, looking into the faces of people from my past. And they are so familiar, and yet such strangers to me. Do people change so much while you are not looking? Am I drunk on the sweet bubbles in my glass?

The clock chimes it’s bells, and the dancers begin to fade away. Sleep doesn’t come, but I must already be asleep, this is a dream.

Even days later, my body still feels like it is floating. I am not sure if I truly saw those ghosts from my past. Those warm feelings, personified from my childhood. Those strangers of my adulthood.

I can’t tell what is reality, and what is dream, but I know that soon my alarm will go off, and life will be as it was.