Dreams vs. Nightmares

I used to swear I didn't have nightmares. I had scary dreams, certainly, but nothing I would categorize as a nightmare. Nothing with real emotional impact where I woke with the penny taste in my mouth from the leftover adrenaline pumping through me. I do remember one from my late teens where I saw myself with radiation poisoning, dying slowly after the third world war. I didn't find it particularly scary, just interesting. No, I didn't have nightmares. Not until I got married. When I finally had something of value to lose.

One morning, about a year into our marriage, I woke with the coppery penny taste of adrenaline in my mouth. I stormed around the house growling "stay away" whenever Steve came within range. An hour later, when I finally calmed down, I felt like a complete ass walking into the living room to announce "I was angry because of a dream." I'd dreamed he had left me for another woman, taking none of his belongings from the house, with no explanation and no goodbye. When I saw him at a party he refused to talk to me - refused to even tell me to fuck off. Just turned his back and walked away with his arm around his new woman's waist. I was angry in the dream and I was angry when I woke up.

They say anger is a masking emotion. Meaning, it covers up emotions such as sadness or fear. I believe it.

I continued to have that same dream about once or twice a year. As time went on, I was no longer angry in the dream. I was confused and sad and crazy with fear. I wanted to understand why he had left, what I had done to make him leave. And when I woke up, I'd shuffle my way into the living room, plop down on his lap, snuggle into his chest and bawl. I finally understood that these dreams were about abandonment. They were dreams about his death.

Periodically during our marriage we'd talk about my fear of his dying without the aid of my nightmares. Something monumental would happen in our life and this fear of his death would rise up in me. I'd beg him to please take care of his health. Please go see a cardiologist. Please don't leave me all alone in the world. These were the only moments I'd pester him about his weight, his numbers, his health. I knew I could hound him to good health but not without our marriage taking a huge hit. And what good was more time together if we were both miserable? So it was only in my moments of absolute fear that I'd talk to him about how his bad health scared me.

He'd cry too. He was scared of dying, of leaving me alone. He hated to see me in pain and knew if he died, no one would be here to pick up where he left off. We both thought that time was a long way off. We thought we were talking about how his bad health now would cut years off down the line. We didn't think it would cut him down in his prime. We thought this was an exercise of the future. So he would hold me, and hug me and tell me how much he loved me.

I think about those moments now. I think about crying into my drink at a bar in Philly as he waved our waitress away. How he rubbed my feet under the table and told me over and over and over again he loved me. He wasn't going to leave me. We'd race our wheelchairs when we were old and gray.

So it surprised me when, after he died, I had the same dream. He'd left me for another woman, taking nothing, explaining nothing, turning away from me when I asked him "why"? It was the same freaking dream I'd been having for years with all the same roller-coaster emotions. Except now when I padded out to the living room, there was no one to cuddle with, no one to sooth me by saying "I'll never die. I'll never leave you alone."

A couple of months later the dream changed. He had faked his death to get away from me and be with his new love. His brother Butch and I stumbled across him while walking through town. Butch was so excited to see Steve alive that he wasn't angry, just blabbing away to his little brother. And Steve blabbed right back, ignoring me the whole while. I woke, again, to the taste of bad pennies in my mouth.

It would seem my subconscious had finally caught up a bit to my reality.

Last night the dream changed once again. Steve had still left me. I had realized, only after the fact, he had tricked me into a divorce. I was in his apartment and we were having a normal afternoon of being goofy and loving and thinking about a little afternoon delight. Then I remembered we were divorced and begged him to come home. Begged him to marry me again. He would just shake his head sadly and say he couldn't. "But we still love each other" I'd say. "There's no reason for us to be apart" I'd say. He'd nod in agreement, smile and explain "We'll still be exactly the same as we were before. We'll just be apart now is the only difference." And then he asked me back to the bedroom.

I've had other dreams of Steve in the last six months. Dreams where we dance around the living room like we used to, dreams of normal days and nights, dreams I can't remember upon waking but wake with a smile on my face all the same. But it's the changing nature of these nightmares that have me intrigued the most. They help show me where my head is at. Where my heart is at. I'd like to think I'm coming to a new place. A place where the fear is still here but accepting that I can continue to love him and accept his love. We'll just be apart now. And that makes all the difference.