Death of a Dream

"What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be." Ellen Burstyn

I put the van in reverse and begin to back out of the driveway. The dashboard clock reads 5:38 p.m. It's July. July 27th, to be exact. It is still very light outside. The days are long and hot since we are in the middle of a Louisiana summer. Altough the sun has begun to go down it is still very humid. It rained quite a lot the day before and the air is so heavy with moisture that you can literally feel the humidity with every breath.

When I am on the road in front of the house I stop the van and just look at the house, my house. Images run through my mind. Walking through the house for the first time pregnant for our first child, sleeping on the couch next to the baby swing, sitting on the patio watching that same baby toddle around after the dog. I can clearly see myself walking through the door four years later with a second baby.

Six years after I first walked into that house I am leaving it for the last time. Even then, as upset as I was, I could recognize that my tears were not for the house or the life I was leaving behind. My tears are not even for the death of a marriage. That happened long before that hot summer day. The deep sadness that I feel is not even for the breaking up of a family, that too had been dealt with long before. The tears are for the death of a dream. Although it was never the family life I had always dreamed of for myself, I still had the dream. No, my tears were for the realization that it was time for all of my hopes and dreams that were dreamt in that house to be laid to rest. It was time to dream new dreams and I had no idea how or where to begin.

I turn and look in the backseat. I see the baby, she is twenty months old. Her eyes have yet to decide on a color but they are very big. She is picking up on all the emotion and is not making a sound. I look to her sister. She is five and understands that we are leaving her home where her daddy is. She, like the little one, is not making a sound but the tears are rolling continuously from her blue eyes. I reach back with one hand and hold hers as I put the car in drive and pull away from our home.

I am not sorry to leave the house or the town. Over the last couple of years I have come to dispise both.

By the time we get to the main road to head out of town the baby is asleep. "Mommy, I'm hungry," I hear from the backseat.

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