Day 4: All Day I Dream About Day Dreams
June 9, 1994
It’s very sobering here. I’ve had no visitors. I’m not sure whom I thought would come, maybe my boss or Linda, my ex, but no. My mother does call.
Sobering because of course, I can not drink, but also because I’ve realized how much I want someone besides my mother to be here for me. I’ll be going home in three days and the thought of walking alone into my empty apartment terrifies me.
Therapist Susan says this is normal. After we’ve experienced major life changes, illnesses or near death experiences, we have an urgency to share ourselves with the world. I do have this urgency, but its oddly more specific.
I keep having these dreams. I’ll call them day dreams because sometimes during the middle of the afternoon I’ll see her. I’ll see her and I desperately need to be with her. Not even in a sexual way, although she is pretty. In a way where my whole body is urgently reaching to her. Every hair feels like its ready to pole vault leap off my head, and my arms and legs need to marathon race to her. Every piece of my skin is itching to shed my body and walk off as its own skinned zombie creature to join the rest of my body in this Olympic-style search for her. And who is SHE? I have no fucking idea!
Seeing her is the best and worst part of my day. When I’m not day dreaming, all I can think about is when will I see her again. The way she looks at me is like I’m her favorite fucking person. And it feels fantastic. I’ve tried to get still and think really hard about the previous day dreams to see if I can get her to come into my mind again, but she doesn’t work like that. It seems very random when I see her.
When I was having my millionth EKG, the nurse mentioned she was going to Miami this week. Thats when I saw her. Sitting on a sandy beach, under a red and white polka-dotted umbrella. And a rush of heat ran through me that made those hairs, and my skin and my heart feel like they would escape from my body to curl up next to her on the sand. Best part of my day and worst part of my day. Like that, she’s gone, and I can’t get her back and I’m left feeling bald, skinless, alone. And they have to re-do the fucking EKG again.
So, getting back to what Susan said about people who’ve experienced major life changes wanting to share themselves with the world… did my brain just make her up because I have no one to share myself with? If so, hat’s off to you brain, she’s great. But also, fuck you brain, you’re cruel and tortuous.
Tonight she will come to me in my dreams and I will find our more information on her. Brain, I’m talking to you! I have three days before I leave and I will not go back to an empty apartment. I will figure out if she’s real and do something about it. That’s the plan.
Until tomorrow, your truly.