When Langston Hughes asked “What happens to a dream deferred?” I’m quite sure he wasn’t speaking about my dream specifically. But I find that time has such an effect on how a dream may “...dry up like a raisin in the sun...”
Almost a decade and a half ago, I was obsessing over the man I truly believed I would love and be in love with for the rest of my life.
No one could tell me otherwise. He was “the one!” I believed that if only I could get him to love me back, we would be good! I don’t think it was too hard for me to love him. Thinking back, I may have painted a picture of the man I thought he was and ran with it. As the years went by, the obsession dwindled and what once seemed to occupy my whole existence, was now just one of many facets of my life. Over time, I continued to love him but I found that I was slowly falling out of love with him. It wasn’t the result of anything he may have done wrong (be it for that, I would have been out of love with him years ago), but more so because much time had passed and our physical distance. We walked very different paths. However, we always found our way back to each other; picking up right where we left off. I wouldn’t speak to him for months, sometimes years, but when we did speak it would be as if we had spoken just the day before. In my heart, it was as if we were some form of soulmates. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
After many, many years had passed, I found myself right where I’d longed to be for almost half my life. As I lay in his bed, I wondered why I didn’t feel how I thought I’d feel. I mean this was a huge victory... so why didn’t I feel it? I looked at him, and the man I was watching was a shell of the man I was once in love with. Love didn’t live here anymore. Well, at least not that fairytale-love I had made myself believe was true. Yet, as my heart broke, a new type of love sprung (or perhaps, it had always been there). Though no longer in love, I was able to love him the way he needed to be loved. Interestingly enough, he later informed me, that I had loved him the right way all along. To him, no matter where I was, I seemed to have been the light at the end of every storm. That warm cool refreshing breeze that comes between seasons. To him, that was me. And for the first time, he told me he loved me, and had loved me for a long time. The love that we had ultimately developed for one another was an everlasting love, standing the test of distance and time.
This dream deferred was the kind that “...crust(ed) and sugar(ed) over like a syrupy sweet...”
No one could tell me otherwise. He was “the one!” I believed that if only I could get him to love me back, we would be good! I don’t think it was too hard for me to love him. Thinking back, I may have painted a picture of the man I thought he was and ran with it. As the years went by, the obsession dwindled and what once seemed to occupy my whole existence, was now just one of many facets of my life. Over time, I continued to love him but I found that I was slowly falling out of love with him. It wasn’t the result of anything he may have done wrong (be it for that, I would have been out of love with him years ago), but more so because much time had passed and our physical distance. We walked very different paths. However, we always found our way back to each other; picking up right where we left off. I wouldn’t speak to him for months, sometimes years, but when we did speak it would be as if we had spoken just the day before. In my heart, it was as if we were some form of soulmates. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
After many, many years had passed, I found myself right where I’d longed to be for almost half my life. As I lay in his bed, I wondered why I didn’t feel how I thought I’d feel. I mean this was a huge victory... so why didn’t I feel it? I looked at him, and the man I was watching was a shell of the man I was once in love with. Love didn’t live here anymore. Well, at least not that fairytale-love I had made myself believe was true. Yet, as my heart broke, a new type of love sprung (or perhaps, it had always been there). Though no longer in love, I was able to love him the way he needed to be loved. Interestingly enough, he later informed me, that I had loved him the right way all along. To him, no matter where I was, I seemed to have been the light at the end of every storm. That warm cool refreshing breeze that comes between seasons. To him, that was me. And for the first time, he told me he loved me, and had loved me for a long time. The love that we had ultimately developed for one another was an everlasting love, standing the test of distance and time.
This dream deferred was the kind that “...crust(ed) and sugar(ed) over like a syrupy sweet...”
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