You Still Reach Into My Dreams

You Still Reach Into My Dreams

(Written 2014/06/04, not previously posted, edited 2024)

To: Elizabeth

You are the only one . . .

My dream, filled with strange imagery, shifts into a home.  The house is a muted combination of the two places where we had lived.  Like so many dreams about you, there is a hint of Christmas.  We are in this house out of some odd occurrence.  Our real lives are still true, both of us independent.  As always, your warmth and cheer reach out, letting me know this momentary encounter is not an inconvenience.  We are figuring out where I can temporarily store my things, when we enter into conversation…

You are the right person for me.  Our years were perhaps my most joyous.  Alone in my hermit hole I have learned a lot about myself.  I was not the right person for you, and I lament any pains I cause.

People frighten me.  In my desire to please and keep the peace, I push down, push away, and hide bits of myself, little by little.  I lose myself.  There is a person in me who wants to sing out, but holds it in for fear of upsetting or unsettling or changing the perspective of others about me.  I need time alone, not to be merely in another room, but to be truly alone.  I need that time every day.  I need time to bang on the piano mindlessly, like a little child who enjoys the cacophony, with no fear of ridicule or rejection, not that you would, but the fear that anyone would is an every present pressure.  I cannot stay with anyone for more then a few hours, and then I must run to my hole of solitude, where I can expand.

I think of how we met.  We were at our mutual friend’s party.  And where was I?  There I sat, alone in the den.  Party goers came and went through the kitchen with fleeting greetings.  But then you came in.  You came in, and your warmth filled the room.  You more than spoke, you came over to me, and sat beside me, and beamed your cheer right at me.

You, and only you, full with your warmth and bubble, were able to reach down into the abyss of my solitude and pull me up, and out.

The dream brakes and restarts, a Christmas tree in the mingled composite of our dwellings.  Then suddenly I am old and feeble, and small.  As if a Benjamin Button, I had shriveled into a tiny old man in a hospital bed.  Alex comes in and says there is a visitor.  It is you, age making you more angelic, rather than the raisin it had turned me into.  All I can do is weep.  You are the right person for me, providing the most joyous human connection I ever had.  It is so sad that I was not the right person for you.

Lonely Because

(2024/02/12)

I am not lonely because I was not loved,

But because I was loved.

I am not lonely because I never loved,

But because I love,

And I threw it all away.

She was the Right Person for Me

Originally written and posted April 10, 2012, edited in 2024

Years pass, and still I dream about her – dreams more real than most I have.  Dreams of being in her presence, just nearby, not too close. She allows me there, her kindness shining so bright.  But you cannot stare at the sun for long.  The vividness of the dreams are so strong. Music drifts through as I watch moments of simple pleasures.  A glance, a kind word; emotion packed into a Christmas ornament, the sweetness of her smile.  I try to tell her that I am okay, but that I still feel.  I feel.  In those moments, in my dreams, I have more feeling, more emotion than I have at any other time.  So often, I feel dead inside, dull and unmoved.  Yet in those moments, in those dreams, the feelings are so deep, I weep and find myself waking, physically moved.

As I wake, feelings both warm and sad sag around me like a heavy quilt, and I remember the counterweight that pulls down on my soul. I recall with fondness the tea cups and doilies, the potpourri and polish, and I think of “Frasier”.  Yes, “Frasier” the television show, and Martin, the father – a duct-taped Laz-Y-Boy versus an elegant Armani.  But that was just a show, and fathers and sons are so different.

She was the right person for me.

I understand London and Hamburg, and La Ville-Lumière.  And there she is again in my life, because I imagined the “Champs-Élysées”, but I would need her help to spell it right – I haven’t the skill to find it in a dictionary.  I pray that someday she will dine with the Queen, or a Prince, or the President, and she can savor all the flavors of the accouterments and circumstance.  For me, the proper fork is tricky. Dining straight from the box the meal came in is satisfying enough. You can hold the sun in your gaze for too long, and when you do, you blind yourself, and you diminish the sun’s brilliance and wonder.

I was a cowboy with a tea cup.  One will destroy the other.  Her beaming personality and light called me to her worlds.  But as I tried to don that suit, I felt itchy and fettered, and my saddle slipped away. My dirt dulled the brightness of her porcelain, and cracked the firmness of her reach, and it should never have been so. She deserves all the splendor and wonder she seeks.  I am content in jeans, and it seems I am unable, and unwilling, to elevate beyond them.

I wake, physically weeping from the dreams, feelings so deep from only a remembered smile.  Her real life warmth and bubble are so strong that she is still able to send me a kindness, even if just in make-believe.  She bettered me, and does to this day.  She was the right person for me. But I was not the right person for her.

What About the Blind Girl?

(Written 12/10/2013, not previously posted, edited 2024 and posted on Tumblr)

The dream started like most dreams do, wispy and vague. There is a gathering of a few people I know, though I cannot identify them. They present me with a horse, of sorts. The horse slowly morphs into a large dog, which we all take for a walk.

As we walk, I become more aware of the group, though I cannot see a face.  I feel comfortable with them.  These are more than merely friends or acquaintances, they are close companions, one of them extremely close, and yet shrouded in a dreamy veil.

I am told, in a rather soft and indirect manner, there is a new person in the group whom they all want me to meet.  The young lady is blind.  She is quite chipper.  The group and I, along with the blind girl, lead the dog with a long red leash as we walk along a low grassy hill in a populated area that feels oddly familiar.

The grassy open area morphs into the interior of a house I have never seen before.  I could not really see it in the dream.  I was aware of walls and rooms, but cannot describe the layout or color, other than to note there are several sets of stairs that have no banisters or railings.  The blind girl walks around the house with ease.

I ask her, “Are you counting?”  Indicating her ability to know where she is by the steps she takes.  She replies, “Yes.”  I am amazed at her ability to walk and talk, and yet keep count.  Suddenly we are all in an upper room.  The blind girl descends set of stairs that has no banister and no wall.  She loses her footing, and falls from sight.  There is a collective gasp.

I lunge toward the edge where she had fallen, and then quickly dash down the stairs, but the blind girl is gone.  There is no sense of urgency.  Instead, there is a feeling that everything is all right. Suddenly a table appears with my ex’s father sitting at it.  He calls his two grown sons to the table for a game of cards, and invites me to play with them.  His demeanor is firm, but not grim.  That was his way.

I place a coaster on the table, and he moves it.  He then notes the table itself, giving it a firm rap with his knuckles.  The bleached wood makes a solid knock sound.  “This is a strong table.  Good wood,” he says.  He grabs the corner and twists it using superman like strength, causing the corner to splinter but not break or detach.

With a spirit like movement, he floats toward me, getting close for a whispered conversation.  “I had a thing for one of my secretaries once,” he says.  I look at him shocked.  He questions me, “But if the house is burning?”

I reply, “Well, I would be the last out.  Everyone else goes first.  That’s my job.”

“Exactly,” he states, with a sense of pleasure in my reply.

While this conversation takes place, there is a sense the hosts within the house are in chit chat conversation.  Some are wondering about the blind girl, while others are talking about ‘her.’  The woman they indicate is my ex, the daughter of the overbearing figure who is questioning me.  I could feel my heart flutter and nervousness rise.

The father turns back toward the card table, and I turn around looking deeper into the house.  I see that I am in a well-adorned living room.  I wonder where the blind girl has gone.  Then I see a young lady whom I seem to know, in a dreamlike fashion.  I recognize her as a dear friend of my ex.  She is a tiny little thing of a woman, putting on her coat and preparing to leave.

She comes over to me and gives me a good-bye hug.  The hug is friendly, with an understanding.  I begin to choke up.  She and I slowly spin a quarter turn, and then the friend releases her grip. There in front of me is my ex.  She did not look anything like she really looks, except in the face.

She has a classic hourglass figure, and wears a gown of day-glow orange.  Despite the seemingly garish color, the gown is fashioned like Cinderella’s dress, and in the foggy muted nature of the dream, creates a glowing princess visage.  She comes to me, wrapping her arms around me.  I hug her, and we hold each other close.  She does not feel like her real self, the shape is all wrong, but it is she.  Her emotion, her personality, her warmth comes through loud and clear.

Like a figurine atop a music box, we began to turn in a slow, floating spin.  The emotions well up in me.  I fight hard to contain a wail.  My eyes water as I soak up the warmth of the embrace.  For a moment, from a third person perspective, I can see my ex turn her head and look at me, though I do not look at her.  She is smiling.  Knowing her happiness adds to the depth of my feeling.  It takes more effort to contain a weep of despair.

I concentrate on my breathing to hold back the emotional onslaught. In and out, breath after breath.

Dream becomes half dream, which becomes waking consciousness. I became aware of my actual, real life breathing.  The breathing of the dream in time with my real, deep, deliberate breaths.  Emotions crawl over me like a pet cat seeking rest.

I fight back tears.

Remembering

You gave me the photo albums,

Wanting to erase your memories.

Sometimes, I wish I could too.

But then I think,

It is better to remember love,

Than to forget.

2024/02/23

I Will Not Lose Her

(Written August 25, 2016, edited in 2024)

When a cataclysmic storm rages between friends, we often look at the relationship itself.  What went wrong?  That is what I did with her.  I examined the relationship.  I am sure she did as well.  However, I think a deeper part of me had a better, though unclear, understanding.

It was not the relationship.  It was me.  I was changing.  I had changed.  I had begun to yell.  I hate yelling and confrontation.  I had become rude and aggressive.  I made her uncomfortable, and made her feel embarrassed around her friends.  I would commiserate over events for days.  I had become particular and fixed.  Meaningless things stuck in my craw.  That was not the me I had been before.

What happened to the person who bought her a flower every payday?  What happened to the person who played with her like a puppy, right in front of her family?  Where was the person who left little notes of affection?  Where was the young adult who sat and listened to music for hours?  What happened to the person who cherished the differences between peoples?  The person I always thought I was, the person I had been was gone, buried under spite and burden, and mostly confusion.

We often point our fingers at familiarity.  Routine steps in, and things get dull.  Certainly, this played a role, but simple commonness would not turn playfulness into argument.  Moreover, I had lost the ability to communicate with others, of greatest note my daughter.  Something else was at work, though I could not see the condition while being consumed by it.  I had changed.  I was changing.  The me I enjoyed had been lost, left behind like a forgotten piece of luggage.

I did not know it at the time, but andropause was eating away at the younger me.  The symptoms, as I read them, did not apply, but every physiology is different.  Moreover, severe Social Anxiety was also setting in, almost to the point of phobia.  I have always been introverted, socially anxious, and awkward, but I was sinking into a much deeper abyss.  Did changing hormones fuel the anxiety, or did the anxiety alter the andropause symptoms?  Who knows?  I can only see it now because it is all done and past.

I did not leave her.  Oh, I started the separation, but it was not her I was fleeing.  I was not abandoning the relationship.  I dragged myself away from her like a dying animal sulking away from the group for the group’s protection.  I pulled the yelling, particular, touchy lunatic I had become to a safe distance.  During a mid-life crisis, most men think of fast cars and young women.  However, I sought solitude.  I hated hurting her.  I detest myself for doing so.  I needed to reclaim the original me and kill the monster I had become.  I needed to punish myself and protect the world from my beast.

The love and affection has not faded.  It has always been there, though it had to be concealed.  I needed to find music again.  I needed to learn to communicate again.  I needed to understand parts of me I had never known, and rekindle parts that had been long gone.  I have learned I am emotionally broken and immature in so many ways.  I cannot reconcile love and sex.  Introversion and Social Anxiety have always been parts of me.  I am a dweeb, a dork, unable to be adult about the emotional and social qualities of life.  I can write a book, talk sciences, teach a class, and solve problems with the best of them, but I cannot properly handle human interactions.  The human equations, the personal qualities, are knots I cannot untie.  Autism, Asperger’s, perhaps there is a sprinkle of these in my matrix.  Looking in someone’s eyes is more frightening than revealing.

I miss her.  I always will.  I dream about her more than any other person or thing.  I wake up crying several times a year, and I do not see that changing.  My hormones have settled.  I have crossed the mid-life crisis, and understand myself.  I listen to music again, and play.  I let things go.  The tensions are gone.  Life’s difficult challenges are faced straightforward.  The love is there and always will be.  I will die with her name on my lips.

I have lost her presence, though I will not lose her.