The first night of fitful sleep after a ruptured ovarian cyst featured a reunion with Dwayne – hardly surprising, not just because I miss him, but also because his mom was the receptionist for my surgeon at the height of my cancer treatments. She was the first person to see me enter the clinic for each appointment, and the last person we talked to when my mother settled the bill.
Of course I didn’t recognize Dwayne when we met as adults. It took a few years of singing together before we were lounging around at a lingerie-and-glasses breakfast for me to figure out that he was the cute boy who worked at the record store next to my high school. My best friend would drag me over there so she could stare at him while I sighed and looked through the albums. Or wander off to visit the guinea pigs at the pet store.
Oh, memories….
What did we do in the dream? We sat around talking about nothing in particular. My dreams are never very interesting.
Last night I was feeling better physically but that is when I always freak out (the fact that the pain was located directly under the six inch scar on my lower right abdomen did not help matters).
For the most part, I did not sleep, though when I managed to drift off near dawn I experienced a paranoid mixed up return to the Seattle house, which as you may recall was located at the top of the Beacon Hill crack staircase. This was fine with me when it was my daily reality – but my neighbors were always spying on strangers and each other. Those antics caused me way more anxiety than dealing with the whores and junkies.
I did not know Mark Mitchell when we lived in the same city, but happily he turned up in the dream with some houseplants and caustic comments. We sat on the porch mocking the neighbors until my alarm cut off the festivities at 6:30am.
The interesting thing to me is that nobody I’ve ever dated shows up in my dreams, or in any aspect of real life. Whenever I broke up with someone (and I was always the breaker upper) they’re gone – forever – scrubbed from every aspect of my life, including my subconscious.
I can’t even remember their names. But why?
Byron knew me at age twenty-one, when I was still married to someone else, and about to dismantle the first version of my identity. Back then he kind of drifted around in my orbit, yearning but not speaking, watching the mayhem. Our courtship did not happen until a couple of years later.
But he is the only available witness so I asked him why the people who fall in love with me lurk around for years after I break their hearts, hoping for a reconciliation or at least sex, lavishing me with attention and hilarious adventures. And also: why the people who claim to fall in love with me vanish when something goes seriously awry.
The answer: Because you would never be attracted to anyone who would take care of you the way you should be looked after. Oh no. You think chaos is hot. Just look at [long list of thugs, thieves, liars, and killers, though only one rapist]. In fact, you married the two craziest people you could find. Why did you ever bother dating? You would have been better off moving to Kansas and kissing a tornado!
Two hours of sleep over three consecutive nights does not translate to a positive, optimistic view of the world. If only I could take naps!