Dreams
Continued From Last Week...
Part 4
When she was fifteen she had a dream that was so vivid and so real that she remembered it clearly and wrote it in her diary when she awoke.
"The people chasing us came up to the place where I was hidden, in a display case in a museum. Then the display case turned into a stage and the bad guys started dancing. I got away and out into a hallway with people walking around and (at last) this guy and two girls came and asked what was going on. I had been looking for them for a long time; they were my friends and we had all split up when the bad guys came. The guy's name was Chris, he had brown hair and blue eyes. He told the bad guys that I wasn't there as I hid behind a door. I thanked him and kissed him twice and then a couple more times. Then, I was in a crowded school hall with lockers. I was writing a note which Chris was reading over my shoulder. I wrote that I loved him and he kissed me a couple more times. Then one of the two girls handed him a pair of those metal braces that crippled people walk with and he walked off. I loved him, but I didn't know what to do."
She is confused by this dream of a boy who seems to be her soul mate, but is surprisingly damaged. She can't believe that in the dream she had never noticed it before. She is ashamed that it matters to her. Could she love a person who was disabled? She hates herself for thinking that she might let the right one slip away because he was not perfect. What does this dream mean? Why was it so vivid? She awoke to her lips tingling as if the had really been kissed. Maybe the dream means there is really someone out there for her. Maybe she shouldn't kill herself after all, at least wait until she's 16, if she hasn't been kissed by then.
Part 5
Everything is so confusing. She's so scared and repressed that she feels like she could shatter any moment. She blushes when anyone talks to her and cries if anyone is critical or disagrees. No one understands her; how could they? She's completely insane, and if she wasn't such a coward she would have ended it by now. Age sixteen, she gives her stepbrother a back massage after he pulls a muscle in his shoulder playing football with some friends. During the last few years they have started to talk to each other a bit, about Things, but not anything really very important. Certainly not about friends or romance or sex. She rubs his shoulders, feels his muscles in her hands, her vision blurs and she her mind wanders. She suddenly notices how aroused she is, fakes a cough so he doesn't notice how her breathing has changed. He thanks her, and she tries to stop herself from watching as he puts his shirt back on.
She goes to her room and turns off all the lights and thinks about running away, thinks about getting a knife instead of this dull envelope opener to slice her wrists with, of the guns in the pantry for shooting pellets at the blue jays. Instead she writes a letter to her best friend, telling her how sick and disgusting she is, and then seals it in an envelope and puts it in her diary, knowing she can never ever tell anyone ever.
Part 6
At age seventeen her dreams get more and more vivid and she writes many of them in her diary. She wants to be a writer when she grows up, and she has turned her loneliness and teenage angst into a kind of suffering and sarcasm that she hopes will make her a good writer. She has given up dreams of suicide, at least until she writes a really good note to leave behind, telling everyone exactly what she thinks of them. But she's not sure what she thinks of some boys, mostly those who are kind of her friends.
"Last night I had an unusual dream. I dreamt that somehow Sophie and I were walking (I guess with Eric) and we fell off of a bridge. We fell quite a distance before we began to feel sandy pebbles hitting us. I managed to grab ahold of a rock and Sophie held onto me. I guess Eric fell, too, because he was sort of on top of Sophie. Anyway, he had a backpack with him and from it he got a rope. He somehow attached it to the bridge. Sophie climbed up it first, then me. But we both had left our purses on the rocks so Eric had to bring them up with him. Anyway, the deal was that he rescued us. Sophie wasn't overly concerned, but I was so grateful because I had been so afraid when we were falling that when we hit the rocks, we would splatter. Anyway, in the dream, a while later, at John's house, I thanked Eric for rescuing me and told him I loved him. He asked me if I loved him for rescuing me and I said that I loved him before. Somehow I get the feeling, actually had it before but now it is emphasized, that Eric can save or rescue me from something, and that he would or will. I also am afraid that I will fall head over heels in love with him. Somehow, he makes me feel safe."
Her sex dreams are more vague and in general rarely progress past kissing. Her subconscious tries to sort out her feelings every night, but she awakens feeling more confused than ever, dreaming of sex with distant boys and love with her friends.
Part 7
College is starting in a few months and the long empty summer gives her too much time for her thoughts to wander and fantasies to grow. Her younger sister seems to be stringing along two boys and her older sister is clearly having sex with several. She still hasn't ever kissed anyone, and doesn't waste much time really hoping for it.
She dreams of saving up enough money to go somewhere far away and exotic like Ireland and meeting an unknown but handsome older man in a bar. She goes home with him, lets him seduce her. There is a semblance of detached concern; he didn't realize she was a virgin until it was too late. No fear of disease or pregnancy, very little pain. The job done, she thanks him and leaves. She plans that when she starts college she'll sleep with the first guy who seems to want to, to get it over with. She thinks this will make her stop feeling so stupid and awkward and empty inside.