Last night I had two very, very sad dreams. It started out with my friend and I hanging out at his house, and being bored so we went to the mall. The mall was very modern and had all the expensive stores. We walked around for awhile, until we ended up in a store that sold little trinkets and the like - all made of gold, silver, crystal, diamonds, etc. He and I were in the back where the salesgirl couldn't see us, and he pushed up against me and started kissing me. I quickly pulled back, laughed, and reminded him that I had a boyfriend and a son, and that this was neither the time nor the place even if I had been available. He backed off, and things went back to normal... or so I thought. We left the store and as we were walking he pulled a small gold sculpture out of his pocket. He stopped, held it out to me, and started confessing his love. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, not only because I had just told him I was unavailable, but because he was supposed to have a girlfriend, because we had been friends with benefits years ago and it never turned into anything more, and because I hadn't even seen him in over five years before this day. I took the sculpture and started walking back to the store, determined to return it, and he followed me. Then I realized I might get pinched for shoplifting, so he and I hightailed it out of there. We ended up at my place, where Poke & 4L weren't home for whatever reason, and he tried kissing me again. I felt so sad because although it was nice to be wanted, I knew it would/could never work with this guy, and I owe so much to Poke for being such a good father & partner. He told me that he would wait for me, no matter how long it took for me to come to him. This also made me sad because I knew he might die waiting.
Once that dream faded out, the next one started. I was back at Bishop Ready High School, to see a musical with some old friends of mine. The four of us, and our boyfriends at the time, had all starred in the same musical twenty years before. The dream was a combination of flashbacks and current times, highlighting the youthful innocence of first true love between myself and my deceased (dream) husband, Jessica and her boyfriend who did not become her husband, Sarah and her husband, and Katie and her boyfriend who became her ex-husband. As we sat and watched the musical, we remembered being so young and carefree, with the boys who would be our partners through thick and thin - mostly.
Sarah had Troy, who was tall and lanky with huge ears and a huge heart. They married straight out of high school and had stood the test of time, even through illnesses, family deaths, and the birth of two sets of triplets, ages ten and seven. Katie and John, on the other hand, had also married straight out of high school and stayed together a long time, but had recently divorced amid accusations of affairs, alcoholism, and abuse. She had been strong, but was stronger now knowing she had made the right decision. They had an adult daughter, born just three months after graduation. Jessica had dated Aaron, and although they had stayed together throughout college and even after that, they never got married. According to Jess, they stayed in touch and often got together for "drinks", as she put it, but you could tell it was painful for her. I got the feeling that Aaron didn't want to commit, but wanted Jessica nonetheless... just physically and not emotionally. Being 38 years old, Jess didn't feel up to starting a new dating life, since she had never been with another man other than Aaron. I had been married to Travis, who had been killed in a car accident about two years prior. We were so in love, it was like a fairy tale, and my life had been incredibly empty and miserable since. I tended to keep to myself, holed up in the house surrounded by all of Travis's things. I slept with his sweatshirts, I sprayed his cologne around so that I would never forget the smell of him, I used his shaving cream. We had one son, Jared, who was eleven. Jared had dealt with his grief and moved on, although he could sense that I was simply putting on a happy face for him. We never talked about his dad - never.
Getting together with my best girlfriends was a weekly tradition, but this night was especially emotional and sentimental because of the setting. As we sat in the stands of the elaborate, modern auditorium, the high school boys came up and danced around us, making us feel so old and yet so young at the same time... did I mention that the musical was "Hair"? (Yeah, as if that would ever happen! Especially not at a Catholic School!) Amid all this nostalgia, there were plenty of strange things happening, such as the kid who played Hud gyrating all over me as I stood and tried to talk with the kid who played Berger. Then, as Hud walked away, the kid who played Berger started gyrating on me as I tried to find my seat. I finally got to sit down when he went back stage, but as I watched the second act I couldn't stop sobbing. Jess asked me what was going on, and I told her that this entire evening was just too emotional for me, too overwhelming, and that I had to go. At that moment, Sheila (the character) came running down the aisle carrying Chrissy (the character) screaming something about her being on fire, and that was the clincher for me. I knew I had to get out of there.
Jess, Sarah, and Katie all walked me out, and as we stood in the parking lot the dream turned into a montage of our memories. There was the time when Troy and Travis proposed to Sarah and I on Valentine's Day of our senior year, the summer before that when the eight of us had gone camping and several - if not all - had their "first times", and the homecoming dance freshman year when we had all first started as couples and friends and started our journey to adulthood. In the dream, my heart was breaking, and I could feel my emotional pain becoming physical pain, and I almost felt like I could die.
When I woke up, it all seemed so real, but more like a real movie I had seen rather than real life, like dreams sometimes do. The feelings in the dream had been so strong, I haven't been able to shake them all day. I have this sense of sadness that won't leave, this sense of nostalgia like "Where did I go wrong?" or "I should have paid more attention/cared more/done this/that/etc." It's so weird.
Usually I can figure my dreams out, like why I was dreaming of the subject or situation, and sometimes I just chalk it up to my imagination running wild while I sleep because being a homemaker often leaves little time for myself. Then there are dreams like last night's, and I wonder what the fuck is going on in my brain. I love Poke, and 4L, and I would not trade them for the world. That's not to say that my relationship with Poke is perfect, but it's not like he's dead to me (as the dream may have suggested) or like I am trying to find someone new. The only part I can understand, which is somewhat present in the first dream and blatantly obvious in the second, is the companionship. I have plenty of friends, but I have no true "best friend", someone who picks me first, calls me first, etc. I don't have someone's house I can go to for anything - watch the kid, cup of coffee, vent about Poke, whatever. I used to have a best friend, I used to have several best friends over the years, and something always happens. Once, I moved, twice, he moved (two different he-friends), once, I got married (which killed two best friendships in one fell swoop), once I acted like a cunt and ruined it all, once her boyfriend hit me in the face with a six-pack of beer and she defended him, and once they couldn't get past their own drama to allow for true friendship. Then there were the three different women I was best friends with, but in all three cases it just kinda faded away because our lives no longer synced like they had at one point.
Prior to be a SAHM, I guess none of this really mattered to me because I had girls at work to talk to. I could vent about Poke, eat lunch with them, sit by them at meetings, whatever. We rarely did anything outside of work, but it didn't really matter because I saw them daily or almost daily. Then, suddenly (and not-so-suddenly) I find myself doing exactly the job I want to do, but feeling a little bit empty sometimes, and very alone a lot of the time. My mom always wants to know why I post every little thing on Facebook, and I can't explain it to her, but I'm going to try to explain it to you. The reason I post every little thing on Facebook is because when I get a lot of likes, comments, etc, it's almost like having a real-life friend. All those clicks add up to what a real, live person would/could do for me emotionally.
Girls have told me to join Mommy & Me groups or something similar, but I don't have good luck with what I call "forced friendship". I'd rather become friends with someone on accident than be forced into it just because we happen to see each other every other Friday. I don't know, I guess that doesn't make much sense. I wish I had a club to join, an inexpensive club, for moms like me who feel like me and think like me. There are so many moms out there today that are Tigers or Alpha or Helicopter, I can't take it. I get very defensive because I just want people to let me do what I want to do, let believe what I want to believe, and so on, and I often (VERY OFTEN) feel like I am being attacked or put down or that they are trying to convert me to their system. It's like all the damage my husband and my former supervisors did to my self-esteem and way of dealing just hasn't gone away yet. Sometimes I even wonder if I have a slight case of PTSD because there are certain situations in which I turn off or fly off and it's always directly related to "taking things personally".
LOL, I think I need to go back to seeing Dr. Bob! Maybe someday, if I ever have insurance again.
No comments:
Post a Comment