Seek and ye shall find

I awoke with a start a while ago, and judging from the ache in my chest, I surmised it was another row with my subconscious. Why can't we just get along, I bitched quietly.

I dragged my sorry ass to the shower. It was just past midnight. For three days now, I find myself stumbling home from work bone-weary and sleeping before prime time was done, always waking in the dead of night from a fitful slumber.

I felt the tension drain along with the water over my body and try to recall the dream I had. It was not a complete fanciful story, or maybe it was, I can't remember. But amid the twirls of images and rush of memories, there was one scene which stood out in great detail like an Impressionist work of art come to life.

I slipped off a silver ring from my finger, clutched it in my hand, and slipped it back on again. And just as dreams play out like scenes on the TV, this particular vision was a close-up of my hand, as if I had an out-of-body experience, seeing my own self through the eyes of another.

I suppose you may wonder why I should remember so vividly a random dream event. I might just as easily have dreamt all the curtains in my house were made of chocolate and all the walls coated in a glossy shade of lavender.

Except that my curtains are not made of chocolate and my walls are white. But I had a ring once that she gifted to me, and I lost it.

I may project a pragmatic lifestyle were you to survey my workdesk and neatly-categorised wardrobe, but the chink in my image of level-headedness is my foolish insistence on ascribing sentimental value to things.

Of course, it shouldn't matter now that the ring is lost. It was, after all, a symbol of a love that today has ceased to exist. So I wonder why I still feel guilty.

Hunkered down in front of my monitor I try to reflect and piece together all these psychic clues that would doubtlessly lead me a step closer to finding my Neverland. Inner peace. Peace of mind. Mind, body and soul. Brand's Essence of Chicken suddenly comes to mind. Dear God, I'm going crazy.

I took a few days off to find Heaven but instead I found Hell. How I suckered myself once more into believing I could just move on with a week's worth of sleeping late and doing jack.

But I did something stupid today at work. I reread all our old sappy love emails that I haven't yet had the heart to trash. And for a moment I was seized with a paralyzing heartache, that she was exchanging the same sappy love emails with someone new. Or something more than virtual.

I could not move an inch, gripped as I was with the stabbing pain of betrayal. The moment passes and my breathing returned to normal. I quickly glance around and am relieved nobody noticed my brief excursion into the netherworld. These sudden attacks come and go, but with decreasing frequency. Maybe I'm just getting better at denial.

Songs play in my head all day like a jukebox gone haywire. Most of the time I'm not even aware of the tune I'm humming. Right now, though, I find myself unable to ignore these lyrics, unrelated as they are to anything I'm feeling:

There's a saying old, says that love is blind
Still we're often told, seek and ye shall find...

Maybe it harks of a past romance where I was that someone who watched over her. I don't know. I just pray I never find that ring again.