El blog de Érika

I remember that ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been terrified of certain dreams. If I dreamed about a wedding, it meant someone was going to die. If I dreamed about babies, it also meant death. Mice, death. Dirty water, death. Basically—according to my very limited knowledge of the subject—everything, absolutely everything, had something to do with death.

Although, truth be told, when my mom and I used to talk about these things, we would usually come to the conclusion that if there are dreams supposedly meaning good things—like money or recognition—and those never come true, then, by that logic, it’s a little–very unfair that the bad ones do come true, but not the good ones.

However, there was always one dream I feared more than any other: dreaming that my teeth were falling out. It didn’t matter if it was just one or several, if I saw them fall or if they were already gone—every time I dreamed about teeth, I’d wake up terrified. My mom always said I had to tell three people so it wouldn’t come true, but even when I did, I’d spend the whole day with that anxious feeling that wouldn’t go away. And I don’t know if it was coincidence or the law of attraction, but most of the time those dreams coincided with something significant—a loss, a death, a major change.

A few days ago, I dreamed that all my teeth were falling out, and I could see them dropping into my hands. Not only that, but my mouth was also full of blood, and I was desperate because they wouldn’t stop falling. It was so hard to tell it was a dream that when I woke up, I immediately brought my hands to my mouth and started crying uncontrollably. Of course, everything was in its place; the only thing that lingered was the headache that’s been haunting me for months and worsens with the cold. They say it’s from clenching my jaw at night or that stress is charging me a price higher than the electricity bill during a Pennsylvania winter—but honestly, I’m just tired of feeling so sick. Sure, since I started taking antidepressants, I’ve felt less miserable, but sick? Still sick. And I’m sure it’s something somatic—something in my life that I’m experiencing and don’t like.

But back to the teeth. The first thing I did was to tell my mom, and she repeated what we learned years ago: if dreams with good omens don’t come true, then the bad ones don’t either. Still, she suggested that if it made me feel better, I should tell other people.

So, I did. I told my coworker, in my survivor-migrant English, and her reaction made me laugh: “Someone’s going to die—that’s what Colombians say.” I wasn’t surprised. She went to high school with several children of Colombian immigrants, so she learned a few things: the meaning of dreams and how to tell a pan de bono from an almojábana.

We laughed for a while about a few other things, and then the anxiety returned. I tried to focus on my mom’s last voice note, where she said those dreams are more connected to change than to loss, but sometimes I struggle to tell the difference. I’ve changed—and I’ve also lost a lot. The changes have been good, but along the way, I’ve lost myself too—or at least some of the dreams I took for granted. I’ve given up so many things and concluded so many times that “God saved me from something” that sometimes I can’t even tell what those somethings were anymore. I just assume that faith in a higher plan helps soften the grief of what slipped through my hands.

Alongside the teeth dream, in the same week, I dreamed about him. I like to think of him as the one great love of my life—it feels poetic—even if I sometimes downplay it as nothing more than a moment of creative inspiration. When I go through the list of men who’ve passed through my life and reach his chapter, my heart tightens the way it does when I reread a passage of Ruido that cost me blood, sweat, and tears. That man didn’t just shake my world—he destabilized my entire universe. And still, reading those old texts I wrote for him almost ten years ago (supposedly to inspire new material), I found myself one Monday afternoon sobbing in front of the computer as if the wound had opened the day before and not in 2015. That day, like so many others, I fantasized about him showing up at my book launch, my friends recognizing him, and, like a ’90s rom-com scene, their eyes widening as they whisper, “Look—it’s him… he came for her.”

You’re never too old to keep having teenage delusions—to dream in Disney-movie mode or imagine a world where reciprocal love actually finds you. For someone who loves romance so deeply—and who eventually plans to make a living from it—life has treated me a little worse than my dreams have treated my teeth. But I don’t give up, and I don’t stop believing.

Sometimes I think of him. Sometimes I listen to songs like Tocado y Hundido by Paula Mattheus and say:

“And I hope you look at me,

and feel touched and sunk,

the way I did when I realized

that among all these people, I would have chosen you again…

and again, and again, and again… and again.”

Sometimes I think of him.

Sometimes I wish he had chosen me.

Then it passes.

I think.