Speaking of feeling isolated: just found out early this morning that a friend of many years died a few months ago. I lived next door to her when I was in junior high and high school, and she was one of the few that kept in touch with me when I moved out to California. We sent letters and cards back and forth, chatted on Facebook, and any time I went back to visit my family, we always found time to sit and chat, some times for hours.
I'll miss her.
A weird and sad dream last night: long story short, lots of folks gathered [include too many lost to time, circumstances, and death], all of whom made very sure to tell me that they hadn't kept in touch because I was "so self-sufficient" that they didn't feel the need to reach out. They were very apologetic, and went to great pains to tell me that it wasn't because they didn't care, or that they had forgotten about me...it was just that they knew that I wasn't someone that needed constant contact in order to know I was loved.
Annoyingly, I woke up crying...I had been in the middle of a conversation with my mom, and she was apologizing for not reaching out to me more. It was actually a conversation we'd had in real life a few times, so it was especially real. The dream, especially ending the way it did, hit a few deeply-attached issues: missing my mom, my friends, my family; the way I've been feeling a bit lost and alienated; the frustrating side effects of living a fair distance from many of the people who are important to me.
That last one was another topic that Mom and I had talked about a fair amount: the whole "living away from the people who matter". She lived a number of years in other states and another country, so she definitely knew what it was like to be "out of sight, out of mind", and to feel like she often had to be the one to make contact [and how needy and desperate that made you feel, rightly or wrongly]. We talked it over off and on through the years, never really coming up with anything that helped...it was just one of the factors you had to accept when you moved away from a previous stomping ground. Neither of us were the "force ourselves on other people" type; if we reached out a few times and were rebuffed, we accepted it and moved on. Doesn't mean it didn't ache a bit, though...as evidenced by the "strawberry daiquiri" conversations we had over the years. No answers, but knowing there was someone else who felt the same was a great comfort...
And while I'm whining: don't you hate waking up in the middle of an emotional dream? Good, bad, sad, whatever...that weird state you are in when you wake up is so bizarre. You are feeling some strong emotion, but you know it's not based on anything real; or rather, the feelings are real, but the circumstances aren't, so you aren't quite sure how to process it and get over it. Dreaming is such an odd thing for the brain to do...apparently it's necessary, but man, it can mess you up sometimes. And boy, so some of them really stick with you...
Next time, I'm aiming for the "secret passage on the stairway leads to the darkened room with the candles and the sunken tub and the floor-to-ceiling window that is looking out onto an amazing lightning storm" recurring dream...
