It begins with that disturbing dream I had

Last night I had a dream, which after thinking about it for nearly 24 hours, I think that it was a border line nightmare. I was observing everything but didn’t seem to be involved in what was going on. Two characters from the t.v. series ‘Reign’ were there, and Francis stood by as Mary, Queen of Scots, had her heart cut out. Then a blurry face, which I can’t clearly remember, placed it in my hands. It felt so normal, to have someone’s entire life in my hands. I don’t believe that feelings or emotion or those aspects of one’s life come from the heart, so that’s not what I mean by this. I mean that you cannot live without a heart. It pumps blood, and it does lots of other things I’m sure but I can’t really think what. But her eyes were still open, and somehow she managed to cry her last words to her beloved Francis, even without a heart. It was in my hands, and the dream even had the very moment when her skin was cut. How could I think of something like that? I wish that was where it ended…

I was then told to keep the heart. The blurry face gave me around five squares of toilet roll to wrap it in, and I put it in my tiny little bathroom, the one I’m about two metres away from right now. Then when I went to look at the heart the next day, it was covered in strawberry jam. Strawberry jam. What?

I don’t know what made me write about this kind of disturbing dream on a blog post. I don’t know what made me start to write a blog. Except that I feel disgusted with myself for dreaming this. I might try to blame it on the film I was watching before I went to bed. A film about Charles Dickens’ lover whose child died at birth, and you see the child. You see it and I couldn’t believe what I saw. The film was rated 12, but to me it was horrifying. It was the way it seemed liked nothing to the nurse in the room. She tossed the blanket over and went to take the child out of the room. And I still couldn’t believe what I just saw. Maybe that makes me weak, that I need to stop taking everything I watch on the telly so seriously. But it invaded my mind in a way that made me feel bad about who I am. And I’m still astonished at the true power our brains have. To dig into deep memories and makes us think about ourselves whole heartedly. That’s what our dreams seem to do anyway. They say you have between six to ten dreams per night, but you forget most of them when you wake up. Yet this dream about the heart of Mary, Queen of Scots, it’s now joined the handful of dreams that I have never quite been able to forget.

My name is Melissa Anne Garrett. I was thinking that if I ever become the writer that I really want to be, I could call myself M.A. Garrett. What do you think about that? Is it too arrogant of me? I heard that J.K. Rowling had her first two initials in her name so that she would appeal to a wider audience, and in truth, all I want is for my work to appeal to the widest audience possible. I don’t want to be adored. I want to be recognised. I want to know what it’s like to feel like you’ve achieved everything you want to. I get the feeling no one ever feels that way, because no one ever achieves this, but at this point in time, writing a novel is all I want.

Eighteen. The promise of life finally beginning. But now that I’m nearly nineteen, does that mean my life can’t begin any more? I say this because I believe the world puts far too much pressure on being young. I worry about no longer being a teenager, because it feels like there is always someone who is younger than me and has already done so much better than I ever could. It feels like years will get away from me. And this is at the age of eighteen that I think like this. But it’s the truth of how I feel. And I have to say I don’t like feeling that way.

I suspect that not many people will get past the first few lines of this post. But that’s okay, because really I just needed to get that nightmare off my chest. And I already feel better for it. I don’t know exactly what has begun tonight. Where this decision to start a blog will take me. Or even if it was a good idea at all. But it was a decision nevertheless, and I believe that making a decision is better than making no decision, even if it was the wrong one. Being in limbo for too long can lead to all sorts of pain.

Thank you for your patience. I wish you all well.

From the young M.A. Garrett.