Let's start right here.

Hi, friend.

I thought you'd written me off. Eight months ago I even wrote about it here; I realize now you may have read those words, which ironically means I could have instigated or exacerbated the very abandonment I railed against without even knowing it at the time (though I've suspected it, and knew there was a slight chance when I wrote those words in pain and self protection). I have no way to contact you directly other than in writing, and I thought since I might have inadvertendly begun this lonely phase of our relationship here, I should come here to end it, and (hopefully) start a new phase.

I dreamt about you several weeks ago. I was driving in my neighborhood and saw your son run across a yard - it made no sense because you're hundreds of miles away. My heart stopped, the car stopped, and I ran to him, asking where you were. He pointed you out, in the shadows of your open garage. You weren't yourself. You'd been sick, you said. Your body had grown dependent on things that would eventually kill it, but you weren't ready to change that. I tried to relate to you and I tried to compare my situation to yours, but you weren't really there. I saw a flicker, but then you sat back and your eyes glazed over in complacency, for now, for then. It was too much for you to deal with - that was the implication. This relationship was just one more thing you couldn't juggle. I told you how close I lived, and that I hoped you would visit me, or would welcome my visits, and I left. I wasn't angry or hurt anymore; I felt sad and hopeful for you at the same time. And then I went back to my own rather insane juggling.

John and I were recently talking about Dylan, and the fact that he has essentially removed himself from our family. He won't return phone calls (when he has a working phone), and even locating him is difficult and only possible through mutual contacts (which grow fewer by the day). I asked him if he was going to call the one remaining friend of Dylan's whose contact information we still have, but John just shook his head. "It won't do any good. When Dylan works out whatever he needs to work out, he will contact us." This felt like giving up to me; it felt like accepting the unacceptable. But I recognize now that what he was saying was that you can't force someone else to love you, or to communicate with you, or to be with you. It isn't right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable: it just is.

I've started to think in the past few years that I'm some kind of weird category of friend. It felt over time that people befriended me out of convenience. I was able to fill some need - usually therapeutic or philosophical or professional in nature - and then once that need was filled, I was kind of a guilty pain to keep around. My friendships with other people seemed to be perceived as high-maintenance and burdensome to all involved besides me - the one left alone looking like a deer in the headlights when everyone else had gone on their merry way. This felt grossly unfair given the amount of effort and energy I thought I'd put into the friendships - and that train of thought lead me to believe I was some horrifying Saturday Night Live, Mary Katherine Gallagher version of myself - just clinging to people in annoyingly breathless, desperate attempts to have someone like me, to force someone to be my friend - the thought of it was enough to make me vomit and then bury my head in the sand, in shame, and in hiding (a la Kramer's Look away, I'm hideous!).

Given all this, imagine my shock and wonder when I saw your name pop up in my inbox. The sadness, defensiveness, guilt, and shame all came rushing back, and then I remembered the dream I'd had about you and everything fell away except concern for you. I don't know how much you've read from this site, and I'm sure you know that even it doesn't contain all significant details, but it sounds like our lives have run similar courses over the past year. (That would be consistent for us, wouldn't it?) I wish you had contacted me to let me know. If nothing else, I could have reminded you that you weren't alone, despite how I know you probably felt. I've missed you, friend. I'm sorry you were hurting, and that you didn't tell me, and that you thought I'd moved on in anger and had closed the door. The door is always open, no matter how much the surroundings may change over time.

Dreamland

Last night I had a glass of wine and some dark chocolate right before bed. Also, yesterday I perused stuff on my cat during a break at work. Note to self: maybe don't combine these types of activities on a day you'll be needing to rouse yourself at 5:00 a.m. the next morning to drag yourself to the gym and meet your archenemy trainer.

I dreamt that I walked sleepily out of my bedroom into the living room where the television was turned on to a new show featuring a group of people with whom I was very familiar in the dream, but now have no idea who they represent in my subconscious (and while I actually learned how to do old school dream analysis in college, I simply don't have the time or inclination). More importantly, there was some unknown worker in a jumpsuit style uniform standing in front of my television, watching. He looked at me when I came in like he expected some response - alarm or confusion - but I was so engrossed in the show that I just gave him a slight nod and he left the room after a minute or two. Everything was moving in slow motion, but mainly my brain, and after he left, I realized two things: 1.) I really should have been alarmed or confused when I saw him in my living room, and 2.) he had apparently just vandalized my house by spray painting Stuff! in black all over the walls and ceiling, and for good measure, also my arm.

The next part of the dream was fuzzy. Somehow, in the unexplained dream way, I learned through an assumed but now unremembered conversation with John that he was surprising me and had entered us into some competition for a reality show that I loved (side note: only in my dreams would I ever be hooked on any reality show), called Stuff In Your House! and we actually wanted these people to vandalize our home because of the hilarity that would ensue on the nationally-broadcast show in several weeks. Besides, it would be fine: part of the show included their return to restore our home to its original condition. In the dream, I was very relieved, but the 3rd party portion of me that was watching myself have this dream was thinking, HUH?!?

I woke from this nonsense to John saying, "it's 2:45! See? I told you they've been getting up at this time! What is the DEAL?" and shuffling up the stairs to put Quinn back in his bed. I fell back to sleep and dreamt two horrible bug-related dreams that I'd rather not record for fear that they'll become recurring. We all know I have a bug phobia, let's just leave it at that. Besides, it was a short dream because I woke again to the sound of Quinn's music over Bryce's monitor, of which I knew the hated meaning even in my foggy state: Quinn was up again, and had opened his door and walked at minimum into Bryce's room, and more likely was on his way down to ours, and would momentarily be standing in our doorway, paci in mouth, blankie in hand, staring at us with that half-creepy half-pitiful stare that I've only ever witnessed from my kids in the middle of the night.

I started to get out of bed, but when I looked down, I saw a kid curled up on the floor, sound asleep. I was confused and half-asleep, and I am admitting openly that I actually didn't know which kid it was. (In my defense, his head was covered with a blanket.) Since I was hearing Quinn's music and hadn't heard a peep from Bryce, I used the strongest powers of deduction I could muster and assumed it was Quinn. I bent over to pick him up, lifted the blanket from his head, and the hair color was all wrong. I actually jumped back a little. (In my defense... I have no defense. I am a freak.) This meant BOTH kids were up at 3:00 a.m., and had been wandering around the house, the house that in my sleep-imprisoned brain I was still unsure whether or not a Stuff In Your House! employee had recently vandalized. I lifted Bryce's sleeping, lanky body and carried him up the stairs to his bed (hello, recently-performed lunges and burning, burning thighs). Then, since I knew Quinn was wandering around somewhere, I went on a stumbly search, and found him, standing on a stool in the dark bathroom and creepily staring at himself in the mirror. He said he wanted water and was holding the cup, but he was just standing there, in the dark. I got him a drink and put him back to bed, but the whole thing was a little too eerily preternatural, which meant that when I was finally able to fall back asleep, it was only for long enough to dream that the Stuff In Your House! people screwed us and never repaired what they'd destroyed, so John had to improvise and did so by painting murals everywhere, using broken plates coming out of the wall to create some sort of crazy 3-D effect.

***Updated to add that after John read this post, he e-mailed me with this:

In the end, no storm.

I'm crouched by a window holding on to Bryce, in a situation where I think I should be afraid, but am really only curious and slightly confused, like a primitive animal. As I look out the window, I realize we're upstairs, and there is a storm outside - a tornado. My mom is right next to me and says with less panic than I'd expect, "the storm is right over us, we're right in it! See?!" She points out the window to a helicopter, and Bryce and I both turn to look. We see the pilot mouthing the same sentence my mom just uttered, and we see a black swirling mass presumably around the house. I think of the scene in the movie Twister where the main characters end up in the eye of the storm, and I realize that's right where we are. Then I realize (again) that we are upstairs (the worst place to be in a tornado), and my mind and heart start racing, why are we upstairs, why did I not get us to our shelter, how long do we have, why is this not more terrifying? I wait for the tell-tale sound of the freight train, what I've been told I'll hear if I'm ever caught in a tornado, I hold on to Bryce, who I note is strangely, quietly calm and curious, I wonder how likely it is that we'll be swept up by the black swirl that I can see right outside the window, if we'll be torn apart in the process, if all of this will be the end. I wait, and I worry, but only mildly, the way Bryce is watching the spiraling mass.

Updated to add: The above is my description of a dream I had two nights ago (sorry if we alarmed anyone). I just thought the dream was very telling about how I view the many challenges with Bryce. As the title suggests, the dream ended with my realization that the storm never hit, despite all the signs that it would, despite all the knowledge that I should be more worried and afraid because of those signs. It's the ultimate truth, isn't it? That in the end, it's all okay.

I knew it was a dream because of the blue eye shadow.

I was in my car, or a car that I assume was mine. I was driving along and became aware of a strange, ambiguous, undefined feeling that something was somehow...off. I felt like someone out of the corner of my eye, outside the car, was watching me, staring at me actually, and trying to get me to look their way. Just because I'm paranoid, introverted, and over-protective of my personal space, I purposely didn't look. I kept driving. Somehow I saw myself - you know, like I was a second person present in the car (or a third person?), and noticed I was wearing a muumuu-like shirt (bright blue with huge white leafy flowers) and also 1985 blue eyeshadow like the kind the girl was wearing in the Indiana Jones movie when Indiana was still teaching classes and one of his students had a crush on him and wrote "I love" on one eyelid and "you" on the other - wrote it on top of a glittery sky blue caked-on eyeshadow - and blinked reeeaallllyy slloowwwly every time he looked at her so as to give him her ultra-subtle message.

I kept feeling the staring and now it was actually becoming more like really annoying movement, like someone was waving or thrashing around trying desperately to get me to look their way. In exasperation, and to myself and the one or two other selves in the car, I said, "tssk!" and looked out my window, preparing to roll my eyes and snarl in impatience and snobbery. Even though my car was moving, and I was driving forward at a presumably fast pace, when I looked out the window and expected to see another moving vehicle dangerously close to mine, what I actually saw made my heart beat twice as fast as usual and my hands clutch the steering wheel more tightly. It was not another vehicle. It was a small one-story red brick house with a glass door allowing me to look into the front room, in which was standing...no, JUMPING and WAVING with all the energy you'd expect from a hyper poodle, none other than RICHARD. SIMMONS. Richard was waving at me like he couldn't wait for me to look over and acknowledge his existence, more than that actually, he wanted me to get out of my moving car and come into his small one-story red brick house.

Confused and yet strangely compelled, I got out of the car, again noticing, despite the absence of any mirrors, my hideous eye shadow and flowy royal blue muumuu-shirt, and walked towards Richard Simmon's small one-story red brick house. Now I was on a sidewalk and had two or three blocks to walk, even though in my car, Richard Simmons had appeared to be right across the street. Suddenly I noticed John walking, rushing actually, by me - not even recognizing me, or pretending not to. I'm sure he was humiliated that his wife was wearing a royal blue muumuu-shirt and 1985 blue eye shadow. I tried to get his attention, and then got really, really mad when he didn't hear me. Meanwhile, Richard Simmons was still frantically waving and jumping jacks in his small one-story red brick house.

I remember thinking I was completely confused. I woke up wondering if that semester in my social science class in college where we discussed Freud and learned his actual method of dream analysis - learned it so well that we had to analyze one of our own documented dreams, actually - would help me. Unfortunately, I am no longer in college and there's no deadline for me to turn in a paper that proves I methodically analyzed my dream. And thank goodness, right? Anything with Richard Simmons in it must mean I'm really warped.

Feverish Nightmares

Oh no. Please tell me this isn't happening. What have I done? I'm on my way to my interview, I've just woken from some unexplained but apparently normal blackout (judging from the fact that no one around me is questioning it), and I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt? And I'm riding in a car with co-workers from my current job? And we're on our way to lunch first? Okay, stay calm. Just get through the lunch, warp time to allow yourself an additional 20 minutes to change clothes in the restaurant bathroom, and then force these co-workers to drop you off at your interview location. No problem. Okay, here we are at the restaurant, and here I go into the bathroom to change clothes. In the mirror I see that I have received some type of "trendy" hair cut and color that makes me look like a Degrassi Jr. High character. WHAT THE BLAZES IS GOING ON HERE?? I change clothes, head back to the table and shriek uncontrollably to my co-workers that we have to leave NOW. They drop me off at the interview building, I stumble in the door, and the male receptionist tells me, "she's not here, hold on. I think we'll have to re-schedule your interview." WHAT?? He disappears. While I'm waiting for him to return, my entire extended family and a whole bunch of other families with kids stream in to the waiting area, and some type of public performance is about to start. My mother-in-law walks up to me and chides, "you need to bow your head during the prayer!" The male receptionist returns and says, "yep, I was right. You'll have to come back next week."

Yesterday I woke up in a cold sweat with stress tears at the outer corners of my eyes. "It's your body's way of dealing with your nerves over the interview," John tells me. But it's so much worse than that. My throat hurts. I feel clammy. My eyes and skin are burning. Oh. Holy. Crap.

I'm getting sick.

I never get sick.

But when I do, it's really, really, REALLY BAD.

Am I going to be hacking and delirious all the way through my five-hour hazerview on Wednesday? Or is my usually hearty immune system reserving all the vitamin C and Airborne I've been chugging in some internal bio-arsenal, so as to release its assault on the evil virus just in time for my interview? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

And someone pass me some echinacea.