From the "I" to the "we"

"I wish you had my eyes so you could see me seeing you."

Disclaimer: This blog contains the word "ex." Fortunately, it is only flavored with this troublesome word of language, and not consumed.

Last night I dreamt I was once again with my ex-lover. We were sat in the center of a cornfield watching the defense line of my High School football team pull the iron bars from my bedroom window. I awoke, as the team successfully removed the barrier, to a pitch black room, unable to sit up in my Frankenstein-like pose (arms forward, hair standing tall, and eyes open wide). I was frightened; my panic began to creep in the beads of sweat on guard along my collarbone. I thought, "I'm dying, and this is really it, the finale, the finis, a sine die, but well, I had a good run." I resigned to a morbid fate and closed my eyes in a last goodbye, a farewell cruel world.

In the wee hours of the morning I regained the mobility of my limbs and dismissed the foolishly thought near-death experience. Perhaps some are aware of my described paralyzation in the night, but I was not, that is until I preformed a Google search, along with my morning glass of juice and daily internet prowl. Night paralysis (as I ignorantly call it) is when an individual wakes during REM sleep, their body saddled in a delay, not yet cognizant that the mind is conscious. And this is what is referred to as "paraphrasing."

It is not the heavy hand of death weighing on your chest, but a bio-psycho-logical process. Oh, and that is an invented word. Somehow the idea of this immobilization as the last stage before death seemed more poetic, more like art, a potential documentary of the supernatural, and less like the textbook explained process that it is; although, I do feel blessed to still have a steady pulse.

As I listened to my alarm sound, frozen in the fetal position, I attempted to meditate away the anxiety elicited by my ex-lover's face, and of his unwanted appearance in the dream. I uncurled my limbs and wondered if it was too early to open the liquor cabinet. The dream-weaver is a fickle fellow. Dreams of grandeur are always interrupted with those of him. Recalling his last apparitional words, "maybe when we have grown," I began to ponder the antithesis of a relationship miracle – when the "I" becomes the "we."

In the beginning of the relationship it is: "When I have kids I will do this," "I want to live here," or "When I am old I will get a face lift." The first trimester is spoken in only sentences of I, but then somewhere along the lines of the second or third trimesters the first "we" is dropped into conversation. Suddenly it becomes, "when we have kids," "when we are older we will live here," or "when we dress up as stuffed animals and go to sex parties."

(Pardon my theft of obstetric terms, but since graduation I have flirted with the idea of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and an ensuing engagement).

The metamorphous can be unsettling for some, but it often goes unnoticed, at least by the stable one-half of the relationship. However, there will be those obsessive types who actively engage in over-analyzing the relationship from its onset, and they will undoubtedly notice the change from "I" to "we." The importance does not reside in when the switch occurs, but what it involves for the two participating members.

For some it is only a new way in which to speak of the future, with an empty barrel behind the word "we," but for the other less secure, stable, and practical individuals it creates mental images of marriage, love, and a lifetime of happiness with the significant other, for the use of "we" must mean that he/she wants to spend their life with me or at the least the first ten years. The split is solidified when the first post-break-up "I" exits my mouth – followed by a mental "Oh shit," but for the secure, stable, and practical realists, also known as my ex-boyfriends there is no change to be noted.

Did I just say me? You caught me. If only I did not spend so much time playing in my ideal world.

I am in talks with all major record labels to write the new break-up Billboard hit. It will be called "From the "we" to the I."

P.S. Be wary of the "we."

"This life is way too short to get caught up, and all mixed up, when I just want you to love me back."