Him

When I was ten, I dreamed of an eagle. It was the largest eagle I had ever seen, with beautiful golden wings and fierce amber eyes, but I wasn't afraid of it because it had a kind of gentle aura. I dreamed I rode on it's back as it brought me up to the skies, yet keeping me safe at the same time. The dream shifted towards the end, where I was older, and the eagle turned into a man whose face I couldn't see. He promised me he would always protect me, and I remember laughing and saying I didn't believe him jokingly, but he patiently followed me and insisted he would. For years after that dream, I always remembered and thought of the eagle as my totem animal or spirit guide if you would, but the eagle has never appeared in my dreams again.

When I was 14, I used to imagine I had a guardian watching over me in everything I did. I imagined him to be this gentle person with long hair, blue eyes and tan skin, someone who wielded magic and someone who knew how to calm me whenever I was upset. He was always quiet and soft-spoken, yet would never hesitate to raise his voice when it came to defending me. I imagined he was someone who never spoiled me, though he loved me endlessly, only indulging me at the right times and being strict with others. He was there when I couldn't sleep and needed someone by my side, he was there when I needed someone to talk to, he was there when I was sad. I wrote stories about him, gave him a name, but one day... perhaps it was time for him to leave, perhaps it was just me... my hand wrote a story about him leaving. "He" wrote me a letter to tell me to live on and be strong, and that we would meet again one day. He felt so real to me that time, I could feel his presence with me wherever I went. Yet, perhaps I felt a need subconsciously to put an end to it all. So it came to an end, even before the year ended. My beloved Guardian disappeared from my life.

And then I somehow, subconsciously, began writing about someone I needed. A companion to my character in a world I had shaped. Someone who was gentle, kind and treated me well, though he tended to tease me, sometimes get on my nerves, purposely annoy me to the point where I would throw something at him, but he would protect me when I was in trouble, offered me help when I need it, was strict with me some ways and lenient another. He didn't care about the venomous words I could say sometimes though he always replied in a way that made me feel bad later on, he was used to my random mood swings, and he didn't care about how childish I was. He just loved me as it is. But then again, stories are just stories, aren't they? No matter how much I write, it'd never come true. I'd never find a guy like I have in my fantasies.

Until I met him.

He wasn't what I thought he was. He wasn't exactly the person in my stories, but he was everything I imagined him to be. Was it fate that I met him? Or had it always been destiny? That someone I never thought I'd find would step out of my thoughts and stories and stand in front of me? That I had been thinking and writing of for years actually existed? Fate or destiny.... Right now I'm standing on a path in my dreams facing him, with a gentle breeze blowing, leaves floating around us, and I see him hold his hand out to me. Where I would have been scared, I reach out and grasp that waiting hand.

Both in my dreams and in reality. Because I don't have to hide behind dreams, imagination and a made-up character anymore. I can just be me.

He's my Eagle, my Guardian, my Protector, and my Reality.

And I couldn't ask for more. Perhaps, everything has come true for me. And I thank him for having been there for me.... always.

-J