That Damn Dream of Mine

There are those nights when I wish I didn’t have dreams or at least not remember them so well. I don’t like dreams that fool me into thinking I’m really awake and that for just a few fleeting seconds, my life is happy, the happiest it’s been in almost ten years. I hate being reminded of what my life used to be like before my best friend, Joan, died in my arms. I hate those nightly reminders that she’s gone and my life will never be the same nor as happy nor as satisfying as I would like.

I had one of those dreams last night. I dreamt that I was at a friend’s house. I knew it was a female friend, but I couldn’t recall her name. She was someone I liked a great deal, but her identity eluded me—up to a certain point. I never know when that moment comes, but suddenly I know I am with Joan again. Everything that I’m missing from this life is suddenly all there in my dream. Nothing is lacking. I am at peace with the world because that horrible death scene with Joan is gone and she’s whole again. She’s my fiend, my confidante. I have someone to talk to again. My loneliness and despair are gone.

This time I was at her house. I had slept over for some reason and when I woke up she was gone, but I knew she was coming back. I knew it to the depths of my soul. She was not leaving me again. I knew I was someplace safe and warm and accepting. I looked around her house, for this was someplace new to me. I knew that it was newly built and was close to work and her sons. It was a simple house, a condo, really, with the usual amenities of a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. Nothing more, but when you live alone, how much do you need?


It was in the bathroom when I realized something was wrong. A feature that has creeped into many of my dreams was present. This bathroom was setup like any other. You walk in and on the left was the sink, then the toilet and then the bathtub/shower. Except, this time, there was no tub. There was perhaps a two-inch lip on the floor to retain water, but you couldn’t take a sit-down bath. You could only take a shower. I looked back at the sink and realized there was a shower nozzle above the medicine cabinet. Looking at the door of the room, I noticed it was supposed to seal itself so that if you cared to, you could take a shower while you stood in front of the sink. In fact, you could take two showers at the same time, or turn the entire room into a giant shower.

Seeing that bathroom, I knew for sure I was dreaming. I hadn’t really slept over. I hadn’t really gotten up to look around. I wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be. I was still just plain old Shonda, plain old lonely Shonda, who missed her friend so desperately, yet again she let herself be fooled by a damn dream.

This is what I face when I’m at my lowest. I take medicine to help with the depression and I do try to get on with life. Still, it’s hard to be something I am not but I feel I should be. I go home and I wonder how much longer I have to be like this. When will the loneliness end. When will the agony stop. When will I be happy again.

Despite being fat, I’ve learned to live my life. I can ignore the morons who think I need to be reminded yet again of what I look like on the outside. I’ve learned to live with those who insist they know what I’m like on the inside. I‘ve learned to live my life without my best friend and to accept that her death was not my fault. But how do you continue to do all this when your subconscious keeps replaying all that you’ve learned to accept and ignore, to remind you time after time that life is not perfect?

I realize this isn’t a funny blog entry. But you can see the irony and some of the small “ha ha” moments. If you take anything away from this blog, let it be the idea that life goes on, even if our dreams keep trying to drag us back. I may bitch about the bathroom dreams, but they are just dreams. And I’d rather dream about an entire bathroom that can become a giant shower than to relive those moments when Joan died. A shower versus death? Water is symbolic of birth and new life. Death is the end. As I said, dreaming about water isn’t so bad.