I feel much better today, despite the unnerving fact that the bleeding doubled overnight. I dreamed about SUUSI - Southeastern Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute - last night. I dreamed about Kerry, my first boyfriend and first love.
We both went to Spirit of Life UU church when I lived in Oldsmar, Florida. I moved there from Roanoke, Virginia half-way through 3rd grade. Moved away to Boone, North Carolina the summer before my 8th grade year. Five and a half years. That was the longest time I spent living in one place, too. One house, one neighborhood.
I would call this the most stable point in my life, except that this was the period of time during which my parents underwent their first and second trial separations, and eventually filed for divorce. I can remember the fights. About the dumbest stuff. Like what to cook for dinner. I remember yelling. About chicken. I remember that my mom was really sad all the time. Or angry. Patrick and I got spanked during this time period. Tempers on all sides were short. There was a heavy sort of atmosphere around the house. I remember crying myself to sleep almost every night in 5th grade. I remember my mom crawling into bed with me sometimes. I guess that was when things with my dad got to be too much for her.
They tried to make it better - my parents, for Patrick and I. They had us enrolled in all sorts of sports teams and after-school stuff. I went to art camp and space camp, I was in ballet and jazz dance classes, I took keyboard piano lessons, and then there was also the soccer and softball team practices and weekend games, and those pesky dance recitals at the end of every term, and I vaguely remember swim team and gymnastics, but that might have been before Florida, in Virginia - all sorts of things to keep us busy and make us into well-rounded people. I wonder if that's what I became - a well-rounded person. Or if I just grew up fragmented. Pulled in a hundred directions.
I remember that Patrick was always good at everything he did. I was not. I would do pirouettes in left field, and marvel at the way my spiked shoes made little cone indentations in the brownish red dirt. In dance class, (moreso in ballet than in jazz) the teacher would smack my bottom and fuss about my curved back. She hated that my butt stuck out so much. Even as a stick-figure in my gangly youth I had a badonka-donk. I would try so hard to suck it in, the way she lectured me to. I even took to sleeping like that, with my hips curved up and forward, to pull in my bottom. It made me feel weird, and contained and nervous and self-conscious.
I was always day-dreaming. I was always escaping into books or music or far-off imaginary places. I loved flights of fancy. I loved fantasy. I read Redwall and Animorphs and Everworld and Young Jedi Knights. I dreamt in vivid, scary colors about death and falling and flying away to the castle down the street at the end of the cul-de-sac.
We had a pool, but I was afraid of it. I had too many nightmares about things you couldn't see down there on the bottom, lurking, that would grab hold of your ankle and pull you under. And I was a great swimmer. I could tread water forever, and I was fantastic at the butterfly stroke. But I hated getting water in my eyes. The chlorine burned so badly. I always had to have goggles. Good goggles. Not those cheap little plastic ones that leaked.
I drew alot. In the back of the classroom where I sat. People were always asking me to draw things for them. I thought it was kind of strange that they wouldn't just try and draw it themselves. Didn't everyone have pictures in their heads? Didn't everybody feel the pull of their hand across the page, the need to express the things building up behind their eyes?
I would draw, and read all the time. Except on the school bus, because it caused me motion sickness and I would get really nauseous. On the bus, I listened to music. First the yellow tape deck with mixed tapes I made myself from CD's I had at home. Then, the upgrade to the CD player which broke when I dropped it once. Then that big, fuck-off contraption - also yellow - that was like a musical TANK. This thing had a latch that kept it closed, you could drop it, sit on it, anything. It was awesome. I loved it. I think we still have it packed away somewhere at my mom's house. I got one of the first generations of MP3 music players from my dad after that. It was something by Nike. It didn't have a screen, just buttons. It was this little rubber and plastic pod. Fit into the palm of my hand. Blue-ish black and gray, with some little orange accents for the symbols. But that wasn't until we were in Boone. Before that, it was that yellow tape-deck and the fuck-off CD player.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Kerry.
Kerry was a dreamy kid. A year older than me, with chocolate brown eyes and a smile that'd melt your heart like butter on hot toast. I had a crush but didn't know it. He had a crush back, but I was oblivious. There were boys in class that I "crushed" on. Giggled and twittered about with girls in the lunch room. But this was different. I talked about him to Kim on the bus, my pretty red-headed friend. ("Auburn, not red.") It was new. It was exciting. The way he talked about things made me feel so naive and, well, young. He was taller than me when he stood up straight, but slouched alot. I had perfect posture back then, what with taking ballet classes since I could walk. I liked him. We talked online. I had AIM, one of the early versions. We held hands at an overnight the youth group held at the church one night. Held hands and talked in hushed tones as the party whirled on around us. Fell asleep and woke up like that - holding hands. It was precious.
We started dating when I told him I was moving. It was July 18th, and the last few things were getting packed into the car. We had our animals in the car already - Salem, our cat; and Molly, our dog; and we were prepping for the drive up to Boone. I was online one last time, talking to Kerry. My friend. He asked me out and I accepted.
It gets really fuzzy here. I remember flashes and glimpses.
I didn't see Kerry, after we broke up, for years. It was high school, at Mountain Con, that I saw him next. He was very different, but still the same Kerry. Everyone loved him - they called him Kerr-Bear. I was so jealous that they all knew him and I didn't. Not anymore.
The last time I went to SUUSI, I confessed my undying love to him. I told him that I hadn't stopped loving him in 8 years. I told him, and he smiled and told me he was flattered but sorry. He had this girlfriend, and whatever - I blocked it out. I could tell it was rejection. And I'd known that it was coming. I was silly to have hoped for a fairy-tale ending. Of course he'd moved on. Any normal, healthy, well-adjusted adult would've done the same. What was wrong with me? Why had I clung so, to childish fancy?
I was crushed.
But I recovered. And afterwards, long afterwards, I realized all the reasons this was for the best. I moved on. I met and fell for the most amazing person I've ever had the pleasure to meet. I am now engaged to that person, and that person is my best friend and he just cooked me breakfast and made me tea and I couldn't be luckier. I found what I wanted, and I'm lucky enough for that to be what I needed, as well.
When I was dreaming, last night, Poncho didn't exist. I was single and Kerry and I pretty much hit it off and got back together. There were many levels of consciousness to the dream. One level knew this was wrong, and was trying to figure out why. Another was happy with this fairy-tale ending and was very child-like. The third was just confused, floating along, and very passive. I woke up and Poncho wasn't there. I was scared, I thought I'd dreamed him out of existence or something. He was just in the other room, of course. But for the first few seconds of consciousness, I thought I was in a dorm room at SUUSI, and I remembered Poncho, and I felt sick with fear and longing. Kerry vanished like smoke before a high-powered ceiling fan.
I know this is where I'm meant to be, so why does my brain dream up such things? I haven't talked to Kerry since SUUSI two years ago. I don't understand why I have to dream about him anymore, now that he doesn't represent all that idealized stuff for me. It's just... disconcerting.
Anyway, I am going to drink my tea and cuddle my boyfriend - er, fiancé - and watch some more movies on Netflix.
Peace, love and strawberries,
Megh
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