Rainy Day Dreams
Apr. 14th, 2009 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationI usually wake up around four am. This is... well, mostly because I don't really stay asleep for very long. So even if I'm still tired, I wake up anyway and that's kind of it. These days I've just been going back to sleep after a few hours, though, since I don't usually have anywhere to be in the wee hours of the morning anyway.
This morning I didn't wake up, I kept right on sleeping and woke up around seven to some very grey and dreary rain in my windows. And I remembered that I dreamed about Elizabeth, which I do pretty often. I guess I thought that eventually I would stop dreaming about her so much and that I dreamed about her because I wasn't "over" her death or I hadn't "accepted" her death. And I just can't believe that it really is her, "coming to me" in my dreams or anything. I know a lot of people believe that stuff when they dream about loved ones who have passed away, but... maybe it's true in their cases. I can't make myself believe it's true in this one.
It's just that I dream about her a lot. Like, a lot a lot. And she died... a long time ago. When we were both thirteen. Since then I feel like I've turned into a totally different person - perhaps she would have too, had she gotten the chance to grow up too. I love growing up. I love, love, love, love it, and it just isn't right that she doesn't get to experience that too.
In this dream she was wearing this blue and white striped shirt that she used to wear a lot, and she was sitting on a stool and I was sitting in a wheelchair (sometimes there's a wheelchair in my dreams - it's really random, and this is doubly random because I got hurt after she died so she's never seen me use one) so she was looking down at me from maybe a foot higher. I noticed that she was wearing heavy black eyeliner and mascara, which she'd never worn in real life. And in my dream I thought I'd better talk to her quick before my dream-self remembers that she's dead and she disappears again. And she pushed her hair behind her ears and said hi to me, and I asked her how she's been, but I found myself really transfixed by her makeup - she was wearing metallic blue eyeshadow too.
She was wearing a ball-chain necklace as a headband, and kept playing with it, and after we talked a bit (I don't remember what we said) she took it off and showed it to me, and I was like, "yes, I noticed that before, but why did you decide to put that in your hair?"
"Well," she said, and her voice went low like she was telling me a secret, "I died, you know. So..." And she smiled, but her teeth became really huge, and she stuck out her tongue but it was a blue rubber band, and suddenly she was gone and I was transfixed again by this pulsing blue rotating mess of rubber bands.
I dream the weirdest shit, seriously. But that dream just left me sad. I didn't have a lot of good friends growing up. I had mostly friends of convenience, people who were in class with me who sat near me and talked to me at school. That was pretty much it. My parents didn't really let me play with other kids from school when I was little, so I think that's part of why I didn't really make close friends, just kind of knew people I was friendly with.
I don't think I ever called Elizabeth my best friend at the time, but, at this point in my life... it's pretty clear that's what she was to me. She was the one I shared everything with - every single thing. I remember thinking that I owed it to her to tell her everything, because she was such a special friend to me. I owed it to her not to put on a show for her, not to just tell her stories but to tell her truths. Because she heard the things I said and understood them and responded with things of her own.
And I tell stories a lot. It's kind of like lying - well, it is a lot like lying and a lot like acting. And I lie too - or maybe I should say, I have it in me to lie. If I met you in real life and we sat down and had a chat, every single word out of my mouth could very easily be fiction and you'd never know it. I don't do that - but I could, and I have, many times over. And all my life, whenever I'm around a crowd of people, I kind of have this mentality where I have to decide how I want to act and what kind of impression I want to give, and then behave accordingly.
And I never did that with her. I was always just my regular self.
I'm sad. I'm sad that she isn't alive, I'm sad that she died. I guess I know that we probably would have grown apart as we grew up - even if we stayed close friends, and I believe we would have, because when we started middle school, well, we both started middle school with different ideas and different goals in what we wanted, and we definitely went separate ways, but at the same time, we'd drop anything for each other. All I wanted was to be one of the cool people, but I'd always take her over the cool crowd any day. All she wanted was to learn, learn, and learn more. I don't think she wanted to be the "best," I don't think she wanted the notoriety of being brilliant, even that's what she ended up with. I think she just cared about learning. Math quest and odyssey of the mind and that stuff - she always made room for me.
But even if we stayed close friends, if she hadn't died, we wouldn't necessarily have stayed close geographically. Kind of like my real, true, good friends don't live anywhere near me now, and we only see each other a few times a year, if that. The friendships I have here, now, feel really shallow to me, and I feel kind of guilty about being so flip about them sometimes, but it's just not the same when it's someone who hasn't known you your whole life.
I don't have the opportunity to make a friend like that again.
Even my friend Matt, who is probably, right now, my "best friend," who I've known since... oh ever, I guess, I think I met him right after Elizabeth died, actually, but we didn't get to be close friends until I was maybe fifteen or sixteen. He didn't know me before I got so... closed off and superficial I guess. So even that isn't the same.
And the friends I have here? Part of me is always going to think of Erica as just another friend of convenience, no matter how much time we spend together. I've gotten kind of attached to her, and I feel like I know her really well, but that's because she's the kind of person who spills everything from the get-go. I haven't done that for her, and, really, I'm not sure I could even if I wanted to.
JJ, the girl I sometimes sort of call a friend, is just a girl who likes to goof off and have fun and be the center of attention with her stories, exactly like I behave in a crowd, and so we have a good time playing off each other. That's kind of... it.
And part of me is always going to believe that my boyfriend... doesn't really know me and doesn't really understand me. I'm just a girl, and I'm here, and I'm available, and he likes me well enough and I like him too, so... that's kind of all it is.
Looking back at this last part of the entry - I don't know. It seems really bleak to look at things this way. I don't have an awful life - things are going well for me, really, and I'm having a good time when I can. This summer - this summer is going to be fun, I am really, truly going to have a fun summer like I've never had in my life, everything is perfectly in place. But underneath it all... I guess I'm still lonely.
Maybe Elizabeth was my soulmate. Maybe when she died it meant I'd never be really happy again. I don't know. At the time - well, it didn't feel like it at the time. I thought, then, that I'd get over it. I was sad, of course, but I thought life would go on and eventually... I don't know. I didn't know I'd get so depressed I'd try to kill myself and fuck my entire life up in the process.
Wow. Now that sounds like I'm blaming all my issues on the fact that she died. That's not really what I meant either, I don't think. It was sad that she died, and I find it eerie that even now, more than a decade later, I still dream about her all the time. That's all I ever intended to say in this entry.
Anyway.
That's all.
This morning I didn't wake up, I kept right on sleeping and woke up around seven to some very grey and dreary rain in my windows. And I remembered that I dreamed about Elizabeth, which I do pretty often. I guess I thought that eventually I would stop dreaming about her so much and that I dreamed about her because I wasn't "over" her death or I hadn't "accepted" her death. And I just can't believe that it really is her, "coming to me" in my dreams or anything. I know a lot of people believe that stuff when they dream about loved ones who have passed away, but... maybe it's true in their cases. I can't make myself believe it's true in this one.
It's just that I dream about her a lot. Like, a lot a lot. And she died... a long time ago. When we were both thirteen. Since then I feel like I've turned into a totally different person - perhaps she would have too, had she gotten the chance to grow up too. I love growing up. I love, love, love, love it, and it just isn't right that she doesn't get to experience that too.
In this dream she was wearing this blue and white striped shirt that she used to wear a lot, and she was sitting on a stool and I was sitting in a wheelchair (sometimes there's a wheelchair in my dreams - it's really random, and this is doubly random because I got hurt after she died so she's never seen me use one) so she was looking down at me from maybe a foot higher. I noticed that she was wearing heavy black eyeliner and mascara, which she'd never worn in real life. And in my dream I thought I'd better talk to her quick before my dream-self remembers that she's dead and she disappears again. And she pushed her hair behind her ears and said hi to me, and I asked her how she's been, but I found myself really transfixed by her makeup - she was wearing metallic blue eyeshadow too.
She was wearing a ball-chain necklace as a headband, and kept playing with it, and after we talked a bit (I don't remember what we said) she took it off and showed it to me, and I was like, "yes, I noticed that before, but why did you decide to put that in your hair?"
"Well," she said, and her voice went low like she was telling me a secret, "I died, you know. So..." And she smiled, but her teeth became really huge, and she stuck out her tongue but it was a blue rubber band, and suddenly she was gone and I was transfixed again by this pulsing blue rotating mess of rubber bands.
I dream the weirdest shit, seriously. But that dream just left me sad. I didn't have a lot of good friends growing up. I had mostly friends of convenience, people who were in class with me who sat near me and talked to me at school. That was pretty much it. My parents didn't really let me play with other kids from school when I was little, so I think that's part of why I didn't really make close friends, just kind of knew people I was friendly with.
I don't think I ever called Elizabeth my best friend at the time, but, at this point in my life... it's pretty clear that's what she was to me. She was the one I shared everything with - every single thing. I remember thinking that I owed it to her to tell her everything, because she was such a special friend to me. I owed it to her not to put on a show for her, not to just tell her stories but to tell her truths. Because she heard the things I said and understood them and responded with things of her own.
And I tell stories a lot. It's kind of like lying - well, it is a lot like lying and a lot like acting. And I lie too - or maybe I should say, I have it in me to lie. If I met you in real life and we sat down and had a chat, every single word out of my mouth could very easily be fiction and you'd never know it. I don't do that - but I could, and I have, many times over. And all my life, whenever I'm around a crowd of people, I kind of have this mentality where I have to decide how I want to act and what kind of impression I want to give, and then behave accordingly.
And I never did that with her. I was always just my regular self.
I'm sad. I'm sad that she isn't alive, I'm sad that she died. I guess I know that we probably would have grown apart as we grew up - even if we stayed close friends, and I believe we would have, because when we started middle school, well, we both started middle school with different ideas and different goals in what we wanted, and we definitely went separate ways, but at the same time, we'd drop anything for each other. All I wanted was to be one of the cool people, but I'd always take her over the cool crowd any day. All she wanted was to learn, learn, and learn more. I don't think she wanted to be the "best," I don't think she wanted the notoriety of being brilliant, even that's what she ended up with. I think she just cared about learning. Math quest and odyssey of the mind and that stuff - she always made room for me.
But even if we stayed close friends, if she hadn't died, we wouldn't necessarily have stayed close geographically. Kind of like my real, true, good friends don't live anywhere near me now, and we only see each other a few times a year, if that. The friendships I have here, now, feel really shallow to me, and I feel kind of guilty about being so flip about them sometimes, but it's just not the same when it's someone who hasn't known you your whole life.
I don't have the opportunity to make a friend like that again.
Even my friend Matt, who is probably, right now, my "best friend," who I've known since... oh ever, I guess, I think I met him right after Elizabeth died, actually, but we didn't get to be close friends until I was maybe fifteen or sixteen. He didn't know me before I got so... closed off and superficial I guess. So even that isn't the same.
And the friends I have here? Part of me is always going to think of Erica as just another friend of convenience, no matter how much time we spend together. I've gotten kind of attached to her, and I feel like I know her really well, but that's because she's the kind of person who spills everything from the get-go. I haven't done that for her, and, really, I'm not sure I could even if I wanted to.
JJ, the girl I sometimes sort of call a friend, is just a girl who likes to goof off and have fun and be the center of attention with her stories, exactly like I behave in a crowd, and so we have a good time playing off each other. That's kind of... it.
And part of me is always going to believe that my boyfriend... doesn't really know me and doesn't really understand me. I'm just a girl, and I'm here, and I'm available, and he likes me well enough and I like him too, so... that's kind of all it is.
Looking back at this last part of the entry - I don't know. It seems really bleak to look at things this way. I don't have an awful life - things are going well for me, really, and I'm having a good time when I can. This summer - this summer is going to be fun, I am really, truly going to have a fun summer like I've never had in my life, everything is perfectly in place. But underneath it all... I guess I'm still lonely.
Maybe Elizabeth was my soulmate. Maybe when she died it meant I'd never be really happy again. I don't know. At the time - well, it didn't feel like it at the time. I thought, then, that I'd get over it. I was sad, of course, but I thought life would go on and eventually... I don't know. I didn't know I'd get so depressed I'd try to kill myself and fuck my entire life up in the process.
Wow. Now that sounds like I'm blaming all my issues on the fact that she died. That's not really what I meant either, I don't think. It was sad that she died, and I find it eerie that even now, more than a decade later, I still dream about her all the time. That's all I ever intended to say in this entry.
Anyway.
That's all.
