Palest Ink

I actually remembered a dream last night, something which doesn’t happen often enough. It was a strange combination of people,  but most of it was about a boy I knew in high school, who appears in my dreams quite often, despite the fact that we have had very little contact in the past decade. He and I were hanging out with his father, only not his real life father, in something like an army tent with cots. Then we went to a party in a mansion, and he got quite drunk, and I was trying to keep him from gambling too much. As many times as he has been in my dreams in the past, this role is something new. I think perhaps it signals an important change in myself.

Let me rewind a bit:  I was totally infatuated with him in school, but we were just friends. Those years, and many of the years since, I have thought of him with something of a feeling of inferiority. He could never like me, because I wasn’t cool/pretty/skinny/etc enough to attract the attention of somebody like him. I moved away shortly after high school, we were both married and I assumed that whole thing was behind me. Alas, no. He started showing up in my dreams about three years ago. The nature of the dreams varied somewhat, but basically amounted to my seeking validation (often in the form of love) from him, sometimes getting it, and sometimes not.  Then, a few months ago, we had a brief interchange online after he ran into my mother. I mentioned the dreams to her, and she got all excited, saying things like “He is your soul mate!” and “You need to come back so you have a chance to be together”,  and while I did not take her seriously, it did start me thinking about him again. I really considered what it would be like at this point in my life, and realized that I don’t want to lose who I have become since then. The hold he had over me was unhealthy at best, and I would not want to be in a relationship like that, for fear that I would lose myself in deferrence to him.

Then, I had the dream last night, this one different than the ones before. He and I were just hanging out, more like friends and equals, and in the end, he even needed my help. I think it is a good sign that my subconcious is finally coming to appreciate my value.  Incedently, I have also noticed that the thought of him no longer has the same emotional twinge as it has in the past. Funny, I first fell for him in Jr. High(1992) and I am finally over him in 2008. About time, eh?

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