on uncomfortable revelations
So I had a dream last night that unsettled me deeply. This almost never happens. I don't do signal dreams, or wish-fulfillment dreams, or whatever the hell your psychiatrist-du-jour calls 'em. Point is, I see that category of dream as a kind of emotional trap, and I have avoided it as best I can. I prefer nonsense, fantastical, why-am-I-having-tea-with-an-ostrich-wearing-a-tutu dreams, which I feel better serve as an outlet for stress, mental or physical. I don't know if my conscious preference for these dreams influences my actual experience, but I'm comfortable with the fact that my dreams don't make a whole lot of sense, and I can wake up and laugh at my brain's ridiculosity.
What I don't appreciate, one little tiny bit, is waking up from The Best Thing Ever To Happen To Me Ever, only to realize that it was just my psyche torturing me, with images of the things I desire most, while I lay helpless against the onslaught. Then I get upset because goddammit, that was THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO ME EVER and it wasn't even real. Then I get pissed off at myself because I had the dream in the first place, and then I'm in a wonky mood for the rest of the morning, and basically my whole day is shot to hell because I want something that isn't possible, and I can't be sensible enough to accept that fact without my subconscious taunting me about it during the night.
I realize that I can't control my subconscious. I also realize that I can't help wanting things, and that trying to be sensible or rational about desire or longing is inherently insensible and irrational. That doesn't help. In fact, that only worsens my mood, because I know I have entered what I have heard termed (and rightly so) a sneaky hate spiral. To put it bluntly, I am being an idiot and I know I'm being an idiot, and I'm angry at myself for the idiocy and my inability to lighten the hell up on myself.
The most frustrating aspect, I think, is not that I'm mad about the dream, not really. I'm mad at the circumstance - that is, I dreamed of something I want desperately, and I have to face the realization that what I want is beyond my reach. This is a very depressing thought, and to have it thrown in my face upon waking up of a morning is just not my idea of a good time. And before anyone can protest that nothing is impossible if you just try hard enough/wait long enough, I shelve my pride and invite you to interpret the following as you will:
We are walking. There's no real point to it, just that it's beautiful outside and we neither of us have much else to do. For once, I'm not working on papers or projects, and he's not so busy it's impossible to tell where he is at a given moment. For once, for the first time in a long time, it's just the two of us. And so we walk together.
The streetlights have tinted the streets amber and rust-colored. Only a few adventurous souls have dared to drive tonight. It's supposed to get colder. We talk about the snow - speculation, mostly, whether more will fall or more will melt when the sun rises tomorrow.
We don't talk much about tomorrow. Tomorrow is full of more work, more busy, more separation. It's not a problem that we don't see much of one another, but I do miss him. Sometimes I just want to sit with him and know he's nearby. He's a comforting presence, a solid one, a happy one. This is why I lean against his side, burrow against him, take joy in the firm press of his arm around my back. He is here, with me, warm and real on this night when all the world is full of ice and shadow and streetlamps glowing on slushy sidewalks.
Delighting in him, in everything, I skip forward and spin open-armed under the inky sky. The stars are invisible, of course, to the naked eye, but I have never needed to see things to believe in them. I'm laughing, at what I don't know - maybe just to see the clouds of my voice taking flight from my lips into the air, shifting chimaera-like as they rise.
He laughs too, and reaches out to take my hand and pull me back to him. I am smiling when my arms wrap tight around him, when he brushes my hair back from my face. I am smiling when he kisses me, soft and gentle, comforting, solid, warm.
I am smiling when I wake.
Tell me you wouldn't be in a horrible mood after waking up from that. I might be an idiot, and trapped in a vicious cycle of self-loathing, but I can at least claim a small amount of justification.
I blame this dream on my recent Disney marathon. Damn fairy-tale endings. They mess you up, man. Hard.