That fiction will have to wait. ‘Cause I’m finding out new things about myself every day. Aren’t you? That’s something that we should all strive for.

I had a dream this past week. It wasn’t the dream that made me realize something, it was my reaction to it when I half woke far too early to get up. I dreamt that a girl I had a crush on a month or two ago was related to me. Yikes. In this dream I was going through some papers on a table in a house I haven’t lived in for at least 14 years. I have a lot of strange dreams involving that house, so I always pay attention to them. The house had something in it, but it wasn’t malevolent. Not necessarily nice, but easy enough to live with. I wonder if these dreams are being sent from the house. So in this dream, the papers of interest that I’d found were re-issues of birth certificates. Which was of particular interest to me, because mine has some weird stain on it, caused by my poor storage techniqes. I started to look at these dream birth certificates, and found one unfamiliar. It was for a girl named Jentra. The certificate had her Zodiac, too, which was Aqarius, so I knew who the dream meant it to be, even if it was a different name from the real person. The name of the father happened to be my grandfather’s name. Which would make “Jentra” my aunt. That was kinda weird, ‘cause she’s a couple of years younger than me. And I had the hots for her. At that point I woke up.
I don’t know why I woke up from that, usually my dreams shift and slide into something else, but I awoke from this one. As I laid there, wondering if I was tired enough to fall back asleep, I sleepily wondered about this strange dream. I imagined a short discussion, which is what I do so much that sometimes I forget if I’ve actually talked to a person about that topic or not. Especially when I’m drinking. So I was talking to a good female friend about this dream. She happens to not like the person that Jentra represented, and has told me that she wouldn’t be good for me when I was crushing on her. I thought about this friend, and how she would be someone who I’d like to date. In fact, when I first met her I’d asked if she’d like to go out sometime. But she’s with someone who makes her feel wonderful, and I am very glad for her to have that. This imagined discussion about my dream made me wonder if we’d be as good friends if our friendship would be ruined if we did date. Even we got along well, it would be different. And if it didn’t go well, then our friendship would have a blight on it, if we even did stay friends.

So, my conclusion from all of that is that I’m afraid of dating anyone.

I’ve been single now for about seven months. Before that, I was with someone for four years. We knew that we were meant for eachother. We were soulmates. We went well together. It was a faerie-tale sort of love. Nothing else mattered. The entire world outside of us was a blur. We physically ached when we were apart. We even had lots of things in our lives planned out together. What kind of house, what we wanted in it, the trees in the yard, the plants in the garden, all that. We had given MUCH thought to children. We both wanted as many as we could have. We chose names. We decided what they’d be named if we had twins. We bought clothes for them together. We planned on all the different things that we’d want to teach them. But that came to an end. And now she’s having a child with her new boyfriend. She’s about 4 or 5 months pregnant, now. She’s very happy, and I am for her. We’re still friends. We see eachother about once a week. And sometimes she’ll call him and end the call with, “love you.” And I have to keep my eyes on the road. And try not to twitch. Besides small moments like that, I’m fairly over our break up. I’m not over the relationship, though. I’m not saying that I desperately want to get back together, because I don’t know if I do. But I’m still not ready to be with someone else. I feel so much to just reach out and love someone, but I can’t be sure about my feelings right now. They’re so chaotic. I can’t focus on any One. I have no One. So I’ll have to stay alone until I know that I can give myself to someone honestly. Otherwise, I would be ruining something that could be wonderful. Sometimes it can be the right person, but the wrong time. My time is not here. I’m afraid that it’s already gone, but I’m trying to keep myself open. Just in case.

Oh, and I know the answer. “Is it better to have love and lost than never to love at all?” Yes. The pain is worth it. For all of those moments with that One, when it was perfect. All of the good memories are worth the pain of having something ripped out of you while you gape, hollow. The aching of emptiness when you can’t eat and can’t sleep and there is no fucking reason to go out there and do anything and everyone has nothing to say that you want to hear and you just want to shut it all away. But you don’t want to run, just curl up into yourself and disappear ‘cause there’s no reason to go out and do anything anymore. Just let it all fade away. Like a snake’s papery skin. But it never goes away. And you have to see things and hear things and meet people that all make some sort of connection back to them. And you hate to see people happy with eachother because they’re so stupid, and it will never last. Will it? Of course not, ‘cause it didn’t. It’s over. And you know that there’s nothing you can do to bring back what was there. But you try anyway. And you think that it might work (it won’t). And you feel so much worse afterwards. Oh, yeah, and maybe they’ll tell you that if you’d done that before it would’ve helped. Yeah, that’s wonderful to know now. What? You’re at that point with them now? Oh, great, glad to know that. So happy for you. I go now. And . . . there’s nothing left. So, yeah. That pain? It’s worth it. For the good parts. That’s what it’s all about. That’s love. And I’m the king of the unreqited variety. I’ve felt this before, a few times, with other people, but this time . . . it was so much harder, so much more of me was gone. She didn’t just break up with me. She killed a part of me that was us. And that includes the kids that I knew in my heart.

Yeah, that’s all whiny. I didn’t think it’d get to those last few points . . . but I guess I needed to get it out.

Now, where’s that Scotch?