It's been a bit of an introspective week for me-I swing from body functions to looking inward with the turn of a spindle-and I'm no different today.

I got an email from someone I consider a friend. They had lost someone that they loved very much, and they were spooling with grief. Grief, this is something I know.

The grief carried over into my dreams last night. Lately, I've been having very vivid, vibrant dreams which often veer on the side of Kafka. Even though I get healthier and healthier, the Kafka, they'll never leave. I think my night terrors are the pennance I pay for my actions either in this life or the last. I can tell you my penance is resolute, and someday when I die, I will be free from them.

Last night was no different. My dreams started off well, I dreamt I had mad crazy loving with Nick Stokes from CSI, before he got a call for a 419 and had to leave (I am clearly watching too much CSI). As he left he told me to take care of that veruca on the bottom of my foot (it still won't go away), and even though he was patronizing, goddamn he was hot in bed. Of course, the fact that we were shagging in an antique bed in a Medieval Mansion I was doing an archaeological study in was a sideshow, the focus was Nick Stokes in bed, really.

I'm sure my dreams are wildly uninteresting to you.

But here's the thing. What I read before bed carried over into my dreams, and I dreamt that I descended down a huge staircase (this is after soaking in the hot male scent of Nick Stokes, of course.) At the bottom was a swish party, and everyone was in tuxedos and fabulous dresses. Some had masks on. And at the bottom of the stairs, in a wheelchair, was Kim.

I haven't dreamt about Kim for a while. Kim has been dead nearly 7 years now, and I stopped looking for him in crowds a long time ago. In real life, the last time I did see him was in a hospital bed and in a wheelchair, as leukemia raped him and left him for dead. In real life, the last time I saw him his voice was quiet, and he didn't look like the man I remembered him to be.

Dying does that to you.

In my dream I descended down the staircase in a silk dress the color of buttercream. Everything moved slowly, and all I could see through the noise and hubbub of the party was him. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I had to talk to him, there was something I had to tell him, there was something I had been waiting so long to tell him about. It was a warning, and it was the one thing I had to give him.

I wrapped my arms around him. "You have to go to a doctor, before it's too late. They can catch it earlier than they did, they can save you if they find it now."

In my dream I look down at Kim again. He smiles at me. I smile back, and feel a thousand levels of ache for what I know is going to happen.

And then I woke up.

I don't know if forewarning him could have saved him. He hated doctors, and he waited until the disease was advanced before seeking treatment. The truth is, I simply think this was the way it was supposed to be. I used to rage against the world for taking him out of it and leaving someone like me in it, I used to think God had a fucked up sense of humor and karma was a piece of shit.

But even forewarning him wouldn't have changed the path of our lives. Even if he had made it I'd still be here and he'd still be there. Although I thought that he would be the one I would eventually die with, maybe that was never in the cards regardless of his death. He was a beautiful, extraordinary part of my life and always will be.

Warning him would not have saved him.

Even if it had, we still wouldn't have been together, although the world would have been better off for having him in it.

And so I get out of bed and I walk the dog. I laugh with Angus and go for a swim at the gym. When I leave the gym I drive home and feel my skin tingle, I feel alive. This is my life and I love it. I get home and find that Angus has booked us a short holiday to Iceland in May, and I am absolutely over-the-moon about it. I feel happy. I feel calm. Right now my life is a bubble that I hold gently and lovingly-I couldn't feel better about some aspects of my life right now, and I could never have believed I would ever be in this place.

I wish my friend's heart peace and comfort, and it will get there someday. I wish her dreams like the one I had, where you see the ones you loved once and you find ways to tell them you still care and always will. I wish her the chance to wake up from dreams, too, and find life embracing you in every way possible.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:43 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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