electric blanket evacuation

So, I was just lying in bed and thinking. Usually these thoughts are complex and slowly fade with me as I go to sleep. Almost as a rule they are forgotten and I fall asleep with questions that aren't remembered nonetheless answered. But tonight I had to get up and put down something that I have been thinking about for a long time.
I used to think abut the past a lot. I used to reminisce, recall, and regret. I was only good at looking at all my mistakes in the past, or as seeing what I did as mistakes and not just reactions to the circumstances. Now, I don't think about the past so much as something to critique but as something to guide me and understand how I got where I am. Back to the issue at hand. I will openly admit it: I really want to be in a relationship with a female. No doubt about it. I seem to go on long bouts of having no relationships with women in any romantic way. Let's just say it's been a while since I have even stayed up late thinking about a girl who has the possibility of wanting to know me as much as I her. Now that's out of the way I'll get to the heart of this midnight endeavour.
I have discovered that many of my dreams are about me and women. Just her and I in a relationship of some sort doing regular things together. I can't say I really remember most of the dreams. They seem to melt into morning as I head towards being awake. There is one pattern that I have noticed about these dreams even though I can't remember them in any real detail. That pattern is that the girl, in one way or another, is the same girl, and a real girl that exists. Well, she exists in my dreams as she existed when I knew her and during the times that make up my favorite memories of her. She's a girl who I have known since I was eight years old. For three years she was the most important person in my life, even though we had an on-and-off relationship. At the time she was the only person I could think of spending my life with. We eventually realized that our lives were going in different directions and we softly let what we had go. And that was fine. Several years later I went to see her in her new life. Seeing her and the change that had come to her life was what allowed me to let go, finally. I remember driving through the Appalachians that night and feeling better than I ever had. At that moment I knew I had finally been able to let that all go. It was one of the most odd and wonderful moments in my life. I felt that I could be myself, apart from what I felt had defined me for so long. That is where my conundrum comes in. I have been seeing her in my dreams for at least two years, and I'm sure longer. When I first realized what was happening I was perplexed and somewhat worried. Was I not over her? Did that time still haunt me? Really? I stayed up many nights in bed, just like tonight, trying to figure out why she was there, why what I thought I had let go of was still around. I think I know why she still comes around, and visits my dreams.
The first thing I realized was that she was one of the last women I had a connection with and a serious relationship with. More so, the relationship wit her is to date the longest and most defining one I have had with a woman (girl, female, lady, ad infinitum). She is in my dreams because she is the face I have seen the most when I felt the best, when I felt as I wish to feel now.
Secondly, she is the girl I have spent the most time with, physically and emotionally. We knew everything about one another. Our relationship worked out really well in a lot of ways. That was evidenced, I believe, by the fact that we were able to go our own ways with respect for the free will of the other. That was the defining moment, I believe, in the relationship. We were able to let the other go because we cared so much. We joked that we'd probably end up getting married someday far into the future anyway. As of right now, I don't think so. So in this way she appears in my dreams because of all the time I have spent with her. It only go to reason.
Furthermore, for the most part our relationship was great. We did a lot of things together that i cherish and look back at and smile. Of course it wasn't perfect, but those times that we had trouble only made us better people and brought us to a better understanding of one another.
She is in my dreams. I don't think I can change that, and that's ok. It is not her that I seek. I seek the feelings and moments I had with her again, but far away from where I first felt them, and with a different face.
Will I ever be free of those few years? Of course not. I would hate to forget those times and not have the knowledge I gained from them. But I must not fear her face in my dreams, because it isn't her as a person, but her as a concept and reminder of how great moments can be with someone for whom which you care so much about.
I've left her behind. I've left my ancestral home, and become semi-nomadic, and have come closer to the man I want to be. My home is no longer where I had imagined ours would have been. But I can see that the home where I want to spend my life with someone is within the abstract idea of the soul, of us as people. For so long I couldn't imagine life without her, of life without her where I knew her. Now, I can't imagine life without the things I hold so close to me that are thousands of miles away from those days when I held her close to me.
So, here I am, writing this at leaning-towards-one-a.m. Have I made any profound discoveries? Naw, probably not. I suppose that isn't the point, that doesn't matter so much. I have put down what it is that is in my head. A head that gets too full sometimes. Not blood letting so much as thought letting.