With order, came peace. Even still, I try to mentally pad the time that has passed since I returned home. Each day that passes since that mental episode, brings relief. That feeling has yet to penetrate my subconscious mind.

Most nights I relive those days, each one with poorly tailored alterations to what had really happened. I know that what I’m feeling is a false response to an overactive imagination, but the frequency with which it happens is getting worrisome.

Perhaps worrisome is the wrong word. As I said before, I’m at peace. I have wasted enough time dwelling in the past, and it is easier to maintain things if we constantly look to the future. It’s a simple mathematic equation that I must follow. Multiplying effort by discipline will inevitably lead to a better end. All I have to do is focus.

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It happened again. Another one of those dreams where I’m back in the geographic cradle of my youth, walking with someone, usually her. Yet that doesn’t connect to the feelings I have right after I awaken. That feeling of breathless panic.

I don’t think about him much anymore. In fact, as the days go by, I find it harder and harder to picture him. This version of me, so warped, has begun to blur into the background. Soon enough I won’t remember him at all. Perhaps that would sever him from me forever, leaving him to drift in the ether for the rest of eternity.

The dreams have continued, but now they are no longer divergent. Each night plays out the same way. Our dinner, that leads to our walk, that leads to feelings that are the antithesis for what I feel the moment I wake up.

I’m being a bit dramatic, and for that I apologize. As I said, nothing is even remotely approaching the label of worrisome. I just need to increase the order in my life until everything falls back into place.