“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Is that as crazy out loud as it is in my head? Reality, better than my dreams? What insanity, could allow such uneven carnage? I know that that’s what you’re all thinking, surely love cannot be so powerful, so unforgiving. But bear with me, because I believe that love is all that and more, and that when reality does become a paradise worth dying for, you have achieved an appreciation of life, which simply cannot be bought.
Allow me to take you to a place, a frame of mind if you will, close your eyes and imagine a person, a person who is perfect in every sense of the word and in every way to you, and who you would do, quite literally, anything for. Imagine she stands beside you, holds your hand, perhaps even rests her head lightly on your shoulder, and she smiles at you. She’s beautiful. *SNAP*. Now come back to reality, and notice she’s not there. It’s just you and this essay, no one near, nothing else in sight – You are alone.
Maybe you see now already, maybe what I’m trying to say has already became clear to you. That dream you just had. That imagination which you conjured up, was oh so much sweeter than your cold reality. How does that feel? S*****, right? Well not to worry, there’s a way to be cured of this madness and mockery, a simple solution to this real first world problem. Fall in love, for when she stands beside you, when she’s really there and you’re not dreaming anymore, that’s when reality, tastes as sweet as chocolate milk, feels like the best imaginable high and smells like freshly cut grass with morning dew. Life has become priceless, nothing can hurt you, you become immortal. And that’s when you start smiling, smiling forever more, until you have a reason not to smile, but what kind of a reason could kill such an immense happiness?
I knew a girl once, who made me feel quite like this. Weightless, without worry, free and graceful. Her name was Claire, and her twin brother happened to be my best friend. Maybe looking back at it now, that should have been my warning or something. Twins, identical twins, and yet I had been stupid enough to fall in love with Connor’s sister. So, so stupid, of all the people!
The four months with Claire were dreamy, time seemed infinite and undemanding, and society seemed more colourful and more understanding. Our love beat fast like the banging of a drum, but I soon came to realise that only one side of the drum would make a sound upon impact. My side, the beating side, for Claire did not feel the same about me as I did for her. Perhaps it really wasn’t meant to be, perhaps destiny had been written long before we’d even met. And so it did end at a point, and reality went grayscale, everything seemed to die before my eyes as I retreated quietly into the shadows of my dreams. The colour of murky water, became the only colour I could still see if I squinted my eyes hard enough. So I walked blindly for a time then. Closed eyes, stumbling through the darkness of my heart, I waited and waited, for any shine of light.
But this too ends… When a new dream is personified, and an angel sails aboard a Viking ship to liberate you from your unpleasant pains. You learn to smile again and you learn to love again. To love her whoever she may be, to love the reality that is your life. Love it all while you still can, love it all, and never lose hope. For when your reality is better than your dreams, that’s when you can’t fall asleep any longer, because that’s when you know that you’re in love.
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