Its four in the morning and a horrible dream woke me up. Normally I just go back to sleep, but today I couldn’t. There’s so much on my mind.
There’s student teaching lesson plans, the portfolios I need to finish, the fact that I have no money and no job to get any, the fact that in a few weeks I will be needing a job I don’t know about yet, the fear of being alone (and the creeping feelings that I already am), the creeping feelings that I am a hopelessly weird weirdo who cannot and will not be known and loved for real, the guilt I feel for obsessing so much about my own life and not making enough of a difference in others’, stuff like that…
And then I have this dream. In the dream, I’m in my friend’s living room with her boyfriend and she and my roommate are in another part of the house. All of a sudden, her boyfriend puts his hand over mine on my knee. And I let it stay there. In fact, my fingers sort of hold his too. Its not that I want to be doing it, or like him in any way… but I don’t do something about it. Why don’t I! And then momentarily, I hear my roommate and friend come in. He eases his hand away but not quick enough and I know they’ve seen. They go back into the other room and there’s some commotion and then my roommate comes back in and starts yelling at him. She tells him to get out of this house and don’t come back here. She throws her shoes at him, which makes him mad, so he throws his at her much harder, and she doesn’t care. He leaves and she doesn’t say a word to me. That horrible feeling I remember from freshman year floods back into me as I enter the back bedroom. My friend is crying and furious, my roommate is just furious. My friend says, “Do I just need to wear a shield right here (motions in front of her chest) until I find my husband?” And she’s crying and saying things like “Aaauuughhh!” and her pain is SO real. And I feebly try to explain that I didn’t WANT to hold his hand. I beg them to understand that. And I say, “I didn’t know what to do when he did that, but my first thought was that I wanted you to see and know that he was a dirtbag.” But my defense pleas sound weak even to me. Why hadn’t it made me mad? Why had I sat there silently, slightly holding his hand in return? Why hadn’t I jumped to fight for my friend like Kelli had? She’s throwing him from the house and throwing her shoes. Livid. And I had sat there letting him hold my hand. My friend goes on to accuse me of “only trying to smooth this over because we plan on living together next year.” That’s not what’s in my heart… but I have no response.
There’s really nothing more to say as I sit and watch my friend hurting, hurting, hurting over this betrayal. And I begin to feel unwelcome there. This room is for those who wish to PROTECT this girl from the things and people in this world that would hurt her. Not for those that DO hurt her and pose as people who care after the fact. “But I DO care,” I want to cry out. “Yeah Right,” says all evidence to the contrary.
At this point I woke up, really needing to go to the bathroom, and therefore very thankful I had woken up. For one thing, it meant that it had only been a dream and that I hadn’t just severed a relationship very dear to me. For another thing, it’s never good when you’re having a dream that feels THAT real, and you have to go to the bathroom during it. Those are usually the times I accidentally wet the bed because I’m convinced I AM in fact awake. I think this dream scares me because what if it says something about my heart? Why… in my deepest subconscious inventions… do I sit casually and allow the boyfriend of a dear friend to betray and hurt her, with ME as the “other woman?” Am I THAT selfish, THAT weak, do I care THAT little about anyone but myself? What is in me that doesn’t react to an advance like that? (That halfway returns it, knowing I care nothing for the guy.) Am I THAT desperate for the small flattery it gives me? THAT much of an adrenaline junkie? Or THAT confused about who I am and what I want? Kelli knew exactly how she felt about that situation. It was NOT ok with her. She sprang into action and said, “Not while I can help it. You will not do this to my friend and get away with it.” Not me. I sat there, and by not responding negatively, communicated that “This is OK with me.” This hits too close to home. I think I have a grand total of about 4 relationships that I truly trust myself in. All others have the high potential for me to screw them up majorly. I think that my family, the Barnes girls, and Sha’lon, are safe.