Wednesday, 01.14.2015 - 8:02 pm.
Last time I dreamed of Joseph, he was no one important, just a face in a crowd crossing the street, a crowd going in the opposite direction to me. I was amazed at how my dreams had progressed over nearly a decade (I met him in 2004), until this point where I didn't care about him anymore.
Actually, that was not the last time I dreamed of him. I saw him a couple more times in the unconscious realm but it wasn't meaningful. He was just an extra in the background, like many other people I know.
But not last night. He came back. It was excruciating. It was a knife twisting for however long the dream went on, could've been seconds, it felt like forever. It made me wake up in anguish.
I saw him talking to my close friend Victoria in a coffee shop. I was outside, I saw them talking. I had a hunch, this guy is trying to get in touch with me through her. Then she approached with him walking behind. I just minimally acknowledged his presence, trying not to look at him so much. He was playing coy, it seemed.
Fast forward, I'm in his house. I know the dream had a logical story, there were specific interactions between him and me (despite my efforts to ignore him) that led us to be there but I cannot remember now. When I woke up I had the urge to write it all down, but I didn't want to disturb myself anymore than I already was by turning on the lights. So a lot of details are missing.
Anyway, I'm in his house. He introduces me to his girlfriend, and I ask to myself, "why? why is he doing this?". His girlfriend is nice, a very artsy, down-to-earth woman, with black hair down to her waist, and I can't help liking her a lot. This too breaks my heart. She's awesome.
I know she's artsy, he tells me she has a shop. Handcrafts and stuff. "You have to give her endless store credit", he says to her, referring to me: "she's a very special person to me". She seems to accept me as non-threatening, a good friend of his. I smile at her, a genuine smile with a bit of admiration for what she does, but inside I go "what the hell, dude?".
Then I turn around and I sense his son approaching. I brace myself for more heartbreak; this was the last nail of the coffin when I decided ("decided" = had no other choice but) to bury the remains of this relationship. When I think of Joseph in real life, I often forget that he has a son. That's the ultimate reminder that it's over. Don't think me obsessed with this, it's been a long, long time since these thoughts occupied space in my mind. But I'm in my dream and all that comes back to me. I sensed his son and then I saw him: he was about eight years old and overweight, which I found strange. And also, I felt no pain by seeing him as I thought I would.
All the time, Joseph's around. I mean, in every frame of my dream, I can see him, if anything, even if from the corner of my eye. As you can tell by my attention to detail, it was a very vivid dream. He was being so friendly to me. And I couldn't tell if he was being friendly for the sake of it, or he was trying to get me back. I suspected the latter but I thought -in my dream- it was just me being hopeful, something that never wore off entirely.
Then I see his mom. I think she's let herself go, even though that's a phrase and concept I loathe. Also, it's not accurate: she only looks very aged, like 90. And then I have to go, and I say goodbye to her. And I say goodbye to like four or five male cousins of Joseph who are just around. They all say I'm beautiful and I say thank you, and internally I say "I hope your cousin [Joseph] thinks the same". I say goodbye to his girlfriend. I believe he walked me to the porch and we exchanged some words and in general I kept being hooked on him, but I forget.
And it turns out he lives on the other side of my block. That's a reminder of the sense of closeness I'd feel when he had just dumped me (coincidentally, that sense was strong, even painful, during the following january after his "request for a 'time out'" in october). Geographical closeness. Back in my home country, I lived like five minutes away from his house by car, and his neighborhood was up on a hill. So when I was writhing in agony by the "time out", I'd be up at 4 am, thinking of going up that hill to talk to him, at that very hour. I was a basket of rationality back then, wasn't I?
Anyway. I walked back to my house, on the other side of the block. His friendliness was so in my face the whole time and that hurt so much. This is someone who didn't really want me anymore, and I couldn't understand his effort to keep in touch with me. I'm turning around the corner on my way home and he calls me to my phone. He asks if I like some kind of pastry and I said yeah. He tells me where I could buy it, and by the way, could I get some for his neighbors, too? It'd be from the two of us. And I replied, "then no, I don't like it", and hung up on him. I felt he was giving me girlfriend duties.
And I said something to myself...I cannot remember the exact version of what I said, but it was something like: "marrying somebody that is not him is terrible. Not marrying him was the best thing that could happen".
Then I reached my house and some burglars were trying to break in, the dream changed completely so you could pretty much say: the end.
I woke up and it killed me. To revisit these horrible feelings, to be reminded that I'm the only one left with this burden, while he was simply over me in his head before he verbalized it (poorly) that october at noon, in which also I graduated from college.
There are two truths about all this: (1) I will always have feelings for that asshole and will remain slightly traumatized by what happened between us; (2) I couldn't be happier and more grateful for marrying the awesome man I married, for whom I will always have feelings too, to the point of "until death do us apart". I do feel guilty for the first thing, considering the second one. But until that doesn't change, if it ever does, I just accept it. It's not something I would act upon; the history behind it is overwhelming and I would have nothing to gain from getting involved in it.