I’ve been a good boy lately. ”Clean,” as a drug addict would say. No thoughts of a certain someone who caused my life to spin out of control. I go to work, come home, wash the dishes, mow the lawn, service my wife in bed and think of ways to fix all that I’ve broken. It’s working pretty good. Lately, I’ve spent more time tending to my legitimate blog (which highlights the mundane details of my life) than this blog, which deals with the mess I made. If I was being graded on my recovery effort, surely I would receive an A.
Why then, despite my best efforts, did I dream of her the other night?
Disclaimer: I hate it when people describe their dreams, as though dreams actually mean something. I don’t believe they do. I believe dreams are just a mishmash of random thoughts designed to keep our brains busy at night. Sure, some dreams seem real. Some cause us to scream out in our sleep. But do they mean something? I don’t think so. This dream served no other purpose than to fuck with my head.
I arrived at a party, which is unusual in itself since I haven’t been to a party since…well…you know. The place was hopping, and as I worked my way through the crowd, I noticed everyone looking at me, as though the guest of honor had just arrived. They were all smiling. Big shit-eating grins. A surprise was in store by the looks on their faces.
“She’s here,” someone said. “Upstairs I think.”
“Who’s here?” I asked, but no one would say.
It didn’t matter. As it often is in dreams, it was understood who was upstairs. She had returned. She was one of us again. And she was upstairs waiting on me. It was just like old times. I felt so happy. So relieved that she had finally come to her senses. All that running back to her husband stuff was over, and tonight we’d be together.
Delays.
I moved from room to room looking for the stairs, but each room led me farther away. The people at the party could sense my frustration, and tried to help by pointing me in another direction. But no amount of navigating brought me closer to the stairway. Yet I could hear her voice. Feel her presence. I could even smell her scent. (Where the fuck are those stairs?)
I found her. Well, found the room she was in. It was full of people. They were there to watch her. She was doing her yoga stretching exercise, the one where she’s standing up and slooooowly bends forward until she touches the floor with the flats of her hands. I saw her do that once. In real life. In her apartment. I stood there and watched, realizing at that very moment I was falling for her, and falling hard. She was angel, and though she belonged to another man, she was mine for that night. Just like this night. The one in my dream.
It was so…fucking…real!
Dreams always seem silly when you tell someone about it, because words can’t capture the emotion we felt. That’s how this dream was. Chalked full of emotion. I felt like a woman eating Haagen-Dazs ice cream from the carton while watching a movie on Lifetime.
Strangely, when I maneuvered my way into the room where “other” was doing her stretch ballet, I couldn’t see her face. The details were fuzzy. And the one time I did catch a glimpse, she looked like someone else. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen her in a long time, and because she keeps herself hidden from me. There are no photos of her on the web for me to Google. At least, none resembling the gurl I knew. The two or three photos of her that are posted on her employer’s FlickR page speak to a woman who has buried her past, guarding it tightly like a dirty secret. The woman I see has no qualms about what happened between me and her. No demons to sort out. But in my dream, she was her old self. And she adored me, as much as I adored her.
I never got to speak to her.
As dreams go, I found myself outside on the patio with a different group of people. It was Ron’s going away party. That’s what this was! I remember now! I was there, and so was she. It was the last party I went to before my life blew up around me. Before I became a prisoner to my home and my wife. ”I’m going to Ron’s party,” I told my wife that night. She didn’t care. She was busy with other things. I was busy fooling myself into thinking that someone at the party truly cared for me. She did. I know she did. Back then.
And that shit wasn’t a dream.
14 Comments
July 11, 2009 at 5:08 am
Teev…
In my experience… dreams seem like seepage from the sub-conscious.
It is not uncommon for us recovered chemical addicts to have extremely vivid “using dreams”. I have had them where I end up waking up for real and kicking myself for relapsing. And worrying what my family will think and feel and how much ground I lost now that I relapsed. The dreams are that real. I feel all the feelings of regret…. Then eventually come to my senses and am relieved that it was indeed just a dream.
Now I couldn’t get any physically and chemically “cleaner” or “soberer” than I am today and as each day of sobriety goes by, I become cleaner and soberer yet. Yet I still will have the odd dream.
My active drinking and addiction made an indelible impression on my subconscious. It will never go away completely. And from time to time, for whatever reason, my dreams access my subconscious and I have a vivid memory by way of a dream of my using. Including all of the feelings that went along with it… the euphoria, the intrigue, the fear, the regret.
How they get triggered, I have no idea, but I would suspect that something I see, hear, smell, or in some other manner sense or experience in my conscious life connects with my subconscious and activates a dream. Who freakin’t knows! And I do not believe all the bullshit I hear from spooky spiritual types that dreams necessarily mean this or that. Whatever.
The only thing we know is that we have them about things in our past that we would rather leave there.
“She” made an indelible impression on your life and you will never forget her. Your subconscious is abundantly aware of it. So maybe your subconscious just felt like taking you on a tour one night.
I wouldn’t put much stock in it… it happens to all of us in whatever type of recovery we are in.
I will pose a question though…. What do you suspect is your motivation in posting pics of tasty chicks on all of your posts?
Are you perhaps drawing out some memories or flirting with the idea of other intriguing women?
Not judging bro… it just begs the question eh?
Ciao.
Chaz
July 11, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Chaz, I agree with your dream assessment. That sucker came out of nowhere, and that’s what freaked me out a bit. I had not been thinking about her in the days leading up to the dream. It was so random. I woke up thinking to myself, “Why now? What did I do to deserve it?” Ah, the marvels of the human brain.
My chick pix? Nah, it’s nothing like you described. Trust me when I say, my days of flirting are over. Long over. For that matter, I was never flirtatious to begin with. Especially not as a married man. I know that sounds unbelievable coming from a guy who cheated on this wife. But it’s true. It wasn’t flirting per se that led to my affair. My dialogue with OW started out as “serious conversation” from one married person to another. Things just progressed from there. As far as the pics of scantily-clad, sex-ready women, I suppose it’s part of the mystery and intrigue of the tvexplorer blog. I want people (first-time visitors especially) to come away with a certain mental image: sex, forbidden love, temptation, carnal desire. The stuff that snares people all the time. Plus, those hot women pics really boost my traffic. I’m a narcissist and a half when it comes to blog traffic.
July 12, 2009 at 12:30 am
TV-
download mrs. potter’s lullaby by the counting crows. its one of my favorite songs ever… but there is a great line that says “if dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts… you can never escape, you can only move south down the coast”… i think part of what your dream says is something you and i both know… we will get better- things get better, our feelings fade, we no longer feel the need to babble on about this person who treated us so poorly… but in the end, we will be haunted by our affairs one way or another. and your dream was just a reminder of that.
just about a year ago i watched my grandfather die in the ICU right in front of me… i watched him take his last breath. for months after that i would have dreams of watching him die… never in the same place, not even with the same people around… but this plot would keep playing itself in my dreams. when shit hit the fan with R and i decided to see a therapist this dream issue came up. she told me that it was my mind forcing myself to relive it over and over again until it didnt bother me as much anymore. and you know what? she was right.
i hope all is well with you… i have quite a bit to write about now that ive started working my summer job that R once worked at… he is a ghost there… but im having a great time. however, one mind boggling issue has surfaced that i think you would find particularly interesting… i havent decided if i will blog about it yet… if i dont, ill be emailing you the story. life is a crazy wonder.
July 12, 2009 at 5:09 am
MM, I would looooove to hear about the “mind boggling issue” that has surfaced. If you don’t feel like posting it, feel free to email me directly. Thanks for the lyrics to The Counting Crows song. I wonder if the writer of that song had an affair?
I’ve never actually seen someone die. (i.e. your grandfather.) But in my line of work, I’ve seen hundreds of dead bodies. No exaggeration on that number. Funny thing is, I’ve never dreamed about any of it. I guess I’ve done a good job separating my feelings from my reporting duties. I just wish I could have done the same with….you know.
Yo MM, don’t be a stranger!
July 12, 2009 at 6:43 am
Teev…. ah yes. Aren’t we all at the end of the day primal and shallow?
July 12, 2009 at 7:32 pm
TV-
i dont know exactly all of adam duritz (the lead singer and creative genius behind the counting crows) relationship past. however, you might find it interesting that he not only suffers from depression but a dissociative disorder. i dont know much about the condition, but apparently you go through periods of disruption or breakdown in memory, awareness, identity and perception. perhaps thats what we had when we had our affairs! lol.
isnt it funny how we can disconnect ourselves from some parts of our lives (in your case your reporting, in my case working with teenagers who may have family problems, etc.), but we cant disconnect with others… again, like it said in my recent post- you have to work more on breaking certain associations than others. thats why i cant wait to close on my house (so frustrating!)… i cant wait to get out of a place that connects to R… im even changing my bed! lol.
July 13, 2009 at 3:15 am
You definitely have to change the bed! I’ll bet my ex-lover’s husband burned the bed we used. And knowing her, I’ll bet she offered her lighter.
July 13, 2009 at 4:11 am
Funny…. I asked my lawyer to put in our divorce agreement that we would sell the bedroom suite.
Proably for exact same reasons stated. My ex responded in her usual way…. ignoring.
I am sentimantal, she is sociopathic. Quite a combination wouldnt you say?
Opposites attract but we drive each other nuts.
Ciao.
Chaz
July 13, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Chaz, you have just described my wife and I to a tee. The whole opposites attract thing, but… I wonder what it would be like to be married to someone who isn’t an opposite. I can’t begin to wrap my mind around that.
July 15, 2009 at 8:30 am
I was married to a man that was my complete opposite. Now my boyfriend is exactly like me & I love it!!
July 15, 2009 at 11:15 am
It would either be beautiful harmony or dull and mundane…. I suspect anyway. One has to have some overlap of interests or values of some kind. But if two people were exactly parallel, … well… I just can’t imagine.
Ciao
Chaz
July 15, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I’m with ya, Chaz. The recipe has to be just right, or at least suitable to taste. To be clear, my wife and I share many common interests. We are alike in many, many ways. But our differences are HUGE, and it’s those differences that’ve eaten away at both of us in the course of 20+ years. The challenge is figuring out how to deal with those differences, especially now….after my “violation.”
July 15, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Thanks for your comment. So…you and boyfriend are just alike? Tell me, does it ever get old? In other words, does it cause you to butt heads? I’d love to know.
July 15, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Have you tried making it clear that her place is in the kitchen?