Image credit: Art by nflorence2012 on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

My subconscious has been spinning up lovely blog posts for me lately. Having held the mirror up to my own self-doubt, it decided to move on to my magical power to heal others.

In the dream, I was out at a restaurant with a group of women and a good friend who has been going through a hard time lately. In the restaurant with us was a fascinating and radiant woman sitting with her back toward me. I very much wanted to to meet her, but couldn't pay attention to her yet. My friend was sitting in a corner sobbing and I had to soothe her. The chorus of women surrounding me urged me on, "Look how badly she's hurting. You have to do something! Do something to make her feel better. Do something!" So I approached my friend who sobbed to me, "I just want to feel normal again. I don't want to feel so sad anymore." I gave her a kiss and through the magic of my caring friendship, she perked right up, forgot her recent losses and said with a smile, "Thanks! I feel so much better now!" I woke up with this feeling that I ought to have been pleased for solving the problem, but was instead ashamed for having ignored the radiant stranger.

Even before I knew we had addiction in our lives, I knew that my husband was hurt and vulnerable; that's part of what I found attractive about him. Because I knew that I was going to place the healing kiss on his fevered brow. It was going to be my divine fabulousness that was going to fill his empty ache and ensure that he'd never be unhappy or insecure. If he didn't believe he was lovable, I was going to love him harder. If he was afraid I would leave, I would prove to him how tenaciously I'd stay. If he felt lost, I was going to show him the way. I was going to keep him so enthralled with me he'd never need to look at anywhere else for a high. That would fix what ailed him, right?

Only for all I gave and as hard as I tried, I didn't possess that longed for dream power to heal him. I had the illusion for a time that I did, but when the reality of his addiction came crashing in, I saw that my single kiss wasn't ever going to fix addiction any more than it could have healed a gunshot wound. And in the process of trying to love him well enough to cure him, I was shamefully ignoring someone radiant and divine that I ought to have been seeking out instead.