It was just a dream, that's what they kept telling me but I don't like that interpretation of how's been my life for the last thirty years. Let me lead you into my story.

I was walking towards my office when I started thinking, it happened very often. My mind had the nauseous habit of flying from topic to topic searching for a meaning, a truth. Galileo Galilei was condemned because he strictly believed in the Copernican theory according to which the earth rotates around the sun and herself, Dante claimed he went through hell and Don Quijote was convinced he was a hero till madness led him to death. Now my question is, what do I want to speak up for? 


New York was cold on winter nights and going back home, the magazine I was working for had a thirty-minute walk, that was the time of the day I waited and feared the most. I used to see scenes and people at every corner of the street, but they weren't there. It had occurred to me something like that when I told my friends


<That man has such a nice hat> and with their American accent they responded,

<Ain't anyone there>.

With time I stopped worrying about notifying people about things I already knew they couldn't see, until today, until the day I needed to help someone because maybe that was my purpose.


That night I was so tired that all I wanted was to jump into the shower and then drag myself into my beloved bed. The following day would have been, to say the least, terrible. The parents of my best friend, Josh, had organized a memorial celebration in honor of him, I couldn't believe it had been ten years since he died, I missed him so much. Anyway, when I turned off the lights that night, as usual, the intangible world showed he existed to me. It was just a dream, they kept telling me. Yes, it was just a dream, children playing in my house like they'd lived there forever. It was just a dream, voices asking me to please pray for their peace. It was just a dream, all the help I received from, I don't know, destiny, fate, luck, or maybe God every time I was in physical, economic, or emotional danger. It was just a dream, but not that night. 


<Hi you, missed me?> that's what I heard, and, my honest reaction? 

<What the hell>. Everyone's always told me I was nuts, but this was just way too much. 

<Hi darling, I understand the shock but may you please listen to me? I kind of need your help>.


I was so scared I turned on all the lights and started screaming and asking him or whatever that was to just go away and leave me alone. Amen, so it was. He went away if we just didn't consider the fact that he came back and I kept refusing him. That night weird things happened. I finally fell asleep and dreamt of him, greeting me, asking my help and finally getting hangry. I woke up in the middle of the night confused and annoyed by a constant cry. It was one of my childhood dolls, he gave it to me for my eighth birthday and now it was crying. I couldn't stand it anymore so I took off the batteries and went back to sleep, but it happened again. How was it possible that the noise I always felt in my head and saw with my own eyes was now manifesting in the reality of facts? Everyone, even I kept telling myself it was my mind joking with my conscience sometimes, but this? This was unbelievable! It didn't stop and it was driving me too far crazy, more than I already considered myself that day. So I yelled, again, against a wall. It was more a kind of desperation <FINE! I'll help>. 

I couldn't believe what was happening, what in the world was the problem with me?


<You've got no problem, my dear. You are just more sensitive than others. You have a gift and you are not dreaming, you could help so many people. You just need to embrace the idea that all that you see is not all that exists. There are things, souls, realities that are far beyond every human perception, except for those who know they can perceive>. 


I knew it and I never talked about it for a reason, but I don't know, maybe talking to him or to someone who didn't actually belong to this world, was somehow easier. However I wasn't prepared for this, so my answer was just <Fine, again. And?>. 

He was by some means amused and replied:

<Just tell her it's ok to live her life. Just tell her I'll always love her and she'll always love me but I do not demand to be her only one. Just tell her to be free. Give me your word>.

And so I did. I promised and while he left I whispered <Sorry I was rude but after all, we had always been like that, things never change. I love you, and I miss you> and he disappeared while, once more, I drifted off again. 


The morning after I felt confused and drained from the night I'd just had so I decided to stay in bed. I needed to think about how I was going to act, I couldn't just go to his now ex-wife, Lea, and tell her he almost hunted me down until I surrendered just to let her know something I didn't even fully understand. It was ten in the morning and I had been informed that the celebration would take place at lunch but I knew I wasn't going anymore. I needed more time. I spent my Sunday morning reading and cleaning to keep me busy but as time passed I was even more convinced I just had a weird dream... until the doorbell rang and I knew it was her. Seeing her was like a kick in the teeth, she had come all her way across the ocean to gather with Josh's family in honor of that sad day. She reminded me of so many things, I missed our days in London, we were happy and young and carefree. 


<Lea please come in, may I offer you a cup of tea?>

<Come on, don't act like we haven't seen each other for almost ten years. You seem like you've just seen a ghost> and she hugged me. 

Everything was the way we had left it but he wasn't there.

<I was expecting you today at lunch but I fear you are not feeling well so I came to say hi. And, well, I mean... there was something I've been meaning to talk to you about>. 


I knew, and I listened. She told me she had a new job and had bought a new house. Through the years she had tried to move on but she couldn't until she met Dan. He loved her and she did too so he tried and asked her to get married after their three-year relationship but she left. He knew her reasons but wasn't going to accept living a life with someone who was still attached to the past and couldn't find the strength to completely move on. And now all the cards were on the table, it was my turn to play and so I did. 


<Lea, you want my honest opinion? Well, here it is. He loved you but he is not here anymore, you have every right to go on with your life and what's life without love? He would have wanted you to fully live, feel, and be your self so if you love this man, go for it. Love him, marry him, I'm more than sure Josh is happy for you from up there and he's looking at you with so much pride, my darling>. She smiled, she cried and I did the same.


A few months later she invited me to her wedding and as a matter of fact, I'm writing this from the plane on my way to the celebration. I know now that what I want to stand up for is the world as no one sees it. Dreams don't exist, everything can be reality. There are millions and billions of non-material entities that stand between you and the next thing you can touch, you just need to pay a little more attention and listen to the silence. Dreams don't exist, they are either a product of our minds and emotions or they're signs, messages to tell us that we, as eight thousand people on this earth, are not as alone as we think we are. Everything is not about human life, everything is not about you, we are part of a plan that you may call coincidence, fate, destiny, universe, God, or whatever. Now if you still think it was all just a dream, ask yourself:

"Could life as we live it be all just a dream?"