The Morning Page

 

Good Morning, Singapore. 

Welcome back, me. I never went anywhere, but I guess I feel the need to re-introduce myself. For today, that is, I can't say who will be sitting in this chair tomorrow or which iteration of me will inhabit my flesh tent. There can be a lot of overlap, and some traits, especially the unwanted ones, seem to carry over into most versions. They are just so hard to sand down, I'd be whittling forever trying to get rid of an unsightly blemish that just happens to be knothole extending all the way to the core. 

I will have to just live with some of those things, since they are apparently who I am. The me who I might wish to be exists somewhere inside too, but in seed form. Perhaps, with a little nourishment, and the right conditions, a new and different aspect of me can emerge, but the tree rings will tell the story, nonetheless.

Right now, I'm struggling to get my dream from last night sorted and jotted. Normal protocol is to write this stuff down as soon as I wake up, and that way I don't lose too many of the details which I would then feel compelled to fill in with fictional material. 

I keep getting texts from my mom, but rather than tell her, "Not now, Mom, I'm journaling!" I keep starting to write, then stopping, getting myself all worked up in the process. 

I would blame this little impatient version of me on the Lamotrigine, or withdrawals from it, but I know better. I'm perfectly capable of having little hissy fits all by myself. This is just regular morning grumpy me, not the drug enhanced hulk version.

The dream, then, without anymore fiddle-faddle, hemming or hawing:

I was in the kitchen with my friend ______, and everything was back to normal. We'd decided to put October back in the can and act as if it was just a dream that never happened. That part kind of mirrors real life, since we talked yesterday for the first time in a week and came to the same conclusion. It never happened, but we can still learn from it. 

(I'll have to let you know how that goes. I tend to be recalcitrant by nature, and learning lessons is not one of my strongest points.)

Anyway, there we were in the kitchen talking about something innocuous and innocent. At some point, we hugged -- and wouldn't you know, we wound up engaging in a kiss. I swear to God, I'd better not get any flack for this. It was a dream. Sue me.

Well, naturally, I enjoyed that moment very much. As it was occurring, I seemed to realize that, "Hey, this is happening," and I tried to integrate it into the context of all that had happened in the previous week or so. It didn't change anything, outcome or decision-wise. It was just a kiss, and I knew that I was dreaming. 

But, yes, it was a very nice nice four second kiss. My arms around her waist, I felt the warmth of her body against mine. I think we both knew that this was some kind of aberration, a glitch in how we were supposed to be acting with one another as "just friends." Nonetheless, it was allowed to happen, and upon its conclusion, she made the remark:

"This reminds me of my mother."

"Did your mother try to grope you?" I said, ungraciously acknowledging the fact that my hands might have wandered a little during that four seconds. 

"No," she said, unfazed. "It's hard to explain, it's..." and she went into a lengthy psychological interpretation which I didn't understand then and can't exactly recall now. 

She wasn't bothered that it had happened, though. It was mutual, brief and incidental. We both enjoyed it, but it didn't change the earth's rotation. We both managed to stay clearheaded and see it for what it was. A kiss. A nice, four second kiss, with minimal gropage. 

After that, we carried on a normal conversation about unrelated psychological things, which are pretty much standard fare in our day to day interactions.

Next, without segue, I was in the dining room with my wife. She was ambulatory, but I was still under the impression that she was infirm. I believed that she still had a catheter, although, later on it became evident that she had shed even that vestige of disability.

We were lumping potato salad onto our plates, when she got a phone call. She started getting a little secretive, talking in a hushed tone and moving to another table to carry on her conversation. I assumed it was one of her many suitors, boyfriends or exes from the past. They never seemed to leave her alone, even though she had been disabled for years. 

"Was that your boyfriend?" I teased, not really believing it was anything for me to be concerned about, and feeling a sense of self-inflated entitlement. She was still my wife, and she was still disabled, or so I thought. Those guys didn't know what they were pursuing.

She ignored my question, and after her phone call concluded, she went to the kitchen to wash her plate. I followed her to the kitchen, asking again, "No, really. Was it?" 

She maintained complete silence, and I kept on haranguing her about the matter. I really had to know. And I felt the need to remind her that she was disabled and that certain things were supposedly off the table:

"These guys don't understand how you are now, the things that you can't do any longer." It felt cruel at the time, but I said it anyway. 

Relatives began to perk up at the insistent tone in my voice. Was there going to be a big blowout? Eager ears strained to catch the first sounds of WWIII breaking out. It didn't happen. She just put her plate in the dish drainer, leaving me with the potato salad pan to wash. I washed it and followed her down the hall.

Trailing behind her, I noticed something different about her. For one, she was buck naked. My eyes honed in on her cute little tushie as she strode quite freely and without any sign of disability. 

"You are certainly walking better these days," I commented. 

I'm always amazed when she is up and about in my dreams. For some reason I keep expecting her to be the same bedridden Sharon that I'd taken care of for the last 8 years of her life.  

This version was different in appearance as well, a very petite likeness of someone else, my surrogate grandma Gracie, to be precise: 5 foot tall, permed, dyed red hair, jowls and rosy cheeks that matched her sometimes fiery disposition.

She just kept strutting down the hall like a a rooster on the prowl. She was ignoring me entirely. 

I didn't begrudge her this newfound freedom. Normally, I would have been jealous at the idea of her pursuing other boyfriends, but she had so much life left in her, and it appeared that her lease had been renewed. Why not let her strut and have her fun? I didn't really have any say in the matter, anyway.

That's all I remember. I will just leave it bare for now, no attempt at interpretation or integration into my framed outlook. It was just a dream. I like it when I dream of people I love, even when weirdness occurs or, as in the case of the first dream, especially  when weirdness occurs.

----

Just a note regarding the retracted posts chronicling the month of October: I will most likely be re-publishing them, unedited, with their original timestamp. I want to keep the record of my mental (un)health intact. 

Taking them all down was just another one of those manipulative tactics that I employ in an effort to create a demand for whatever it is that I call my currency.

Also, as embarrassing as some of the material I post here might be, I don't think it's fair for me to rewrite history in an effort to make myself appear in a more favorable light. I will own my stupid, my fails, my missteps and miscalculations. And maybe someone, somewhere, will learn from my dumbassery and make better choices.