the dream i woke up from:
i am with a man i know- or men- he keeps shifting between two. it is mostly t. he has been in an accident and is now a paraplegic. we are hanging out on a hot sunny afternoon before he has to go to work and i am due at a staff meeting. we are getting along fantastically, laughing, flirting- i am straddling him on his chair and everything is working exactly as i remember. i offer to take him to work after my meeting, which is inexplicably being held at a natural amphitheater in girdwood. "are you sure it's not any trouble?" he asks, and it is then that i finally notice the scared look on his face. he is vulnerable now, damaged goods, dependent upon me- and we are acting reinfatuated and giddy, and it seems far too good to be true.
in the dream, he is feeling the way i have felt for the last two years. he finally fucking gets it.
"of course it's no trouble" i say breezily, trying to keep it light, acting like i didn't catch his expression. "i can get you there in time."
we go to the meeting. i get swept into the crowd- my workplace has blossomed to a staff of hundreds- and have to climb tall bleachers to avoid walking in front of the stage in front. i am sitting next to some coworkers who are giggling among themselves; i pull my knees up to my chest- i am wearing shorts- and idly ignore the surroundings. i am happy and excited and i can't wait to be with him again, touch him, tell him everything that i snottily refused to say over the last five years. i want to know everything. i want to restart our future where our past left off.
but i realize that i lost him in the crowd. and wherever he is, he cannot get to where i'm at. and in a thudding moment of "oh my god, what the fuck was i thinking" it becomes gruesomely lucid how everything has changed, how fucking inadequate i feel about being what he needs- i fucked it up before and now the stakes are infinitely more convoluted- and how i'm still the selfish little girl who darts off with no concept of consequence. i cannot leave the stands without risking my job. "he'll be fine" i tell myself.
after the lecture, which goes on longer than i'd expected, i hurry through the throng to find him. he's going to be late for work and probably resents everything. we eventually meet in the parking lot- and i don't remember the conversation at this point of the dream, just the sun shining through the trees, on his hair, on his suit. he looks lonely and stressed. i am smiling and relieved. and terrified. "please don't let him hate me" i am silently wishing. "please, i need him as much as he needs me now. i need this to work. i need to prove that i fucking love him."
*
i wake up. my lair is light, which never happens- i have been getting up before 6 am for the last two months, watching rush-hour traffic congeal on the interstate under a black sky. i am vaguely disoriented, then giddy, then really fucking lonely. i am also residually aroused. the good parts of the dream felt so fucking right, so easy- that invincible us-against-everything bullshit that made me agree to marry him in the first place. and i was fucking needed. i was needed and appreciated in a way i never felt when we were actually together. and he had to be in a fucking goddamn wheelchair to finally act that way.
now, while typing this, it is occuring to me how fucking depressing my mind truly is.
*
i don't feel needed, or even wanted, at all anymore. by anyone or anything. ephemeral, disposable, there. it is anathematic to dissect this too much. just go through life, ruffle the breeze, make eye contact with everyone else and know that they may occasionally feel the same way.