The Braver 1%

If I close my eyes (like I'm going to do for a brief moment now), I'm somehow transported back. I wake suddenly. I'm in a hotel room in Reykjavik. It's quiet and dark except for a sliver of light coming through the not-quite-closed blackout curtains. I can feel the cool sheets and weight of the duvet and its pristine white cover. It's night, though I have no idea what time it is. I'd gone to bed early. That much I know. I might have been asleep five minutes or five hours. I wouldn't know until I looked at watch. 

I can close my eyes again and a very similar scene plays. I wake suddenly. I'm in the same dark hotel room, same sliver of light, same cool sheets. This time I'm not alone. I feel her body against mine, holding me as a lover would. For an instant, it's warm, comforting, welcome. Then the realization hits and I'm terrified. I can't get away fast enough. As I pull away, she disappears.

A dream. I'd been dreaming. It'd been so real. Months later, it still seems real.

I remember breathing and trying to calm the hammering of my heart. I got out of bed and took a giant swig of pear cider (I'd bought a jumbo bottle to celebrate the race I'd run the day before). It was warm - my room didn't have a refrigerator - and I recall choking a bit. I looked at my watch. It wasn't even 10:30 and I hadn't been asleep long. I quickly calculated the time difference in my head then texted a friend back home in the States. I had to tell someone. What if I fell back to sleep and forgot? What if I didn't? I wasn't sure which scared me more.

Why was I so terrified? No one died. There weren't snakes or a fall from a great height. I hadn't suffocated. Moreover, I'd had ultra-realistic dreams before. Not often, but I'd had them. Those dreams, though... They were different. Or maybe it was this dream that was different. It's been months (I was in Reykjavik in October. It's currently February) and yet I still can't shake it. 

Maybe if I didn't see her all the time (all the fucking time), I'd be past it. Maybe it would have been a one off, "Well, that was weird...moving on..." But it's not. I'm not. Moving on, I mean. Look, it's not like every time I see her I remember how we woke up together in Reykjavik in a dream that one time. That would be creepy. It's just that...I dunno. I can't seem to forget what her body feels like against mine. Even though that would be impossible for me to know because with the exception of an accidental brushing of a hand or arm we have never touched. Ever.

But I know. I fucking know. Maybe it wouldn't be as terrifying if I hadn't woken up in the dream in the same fucking hotel room as I woke up in real life. Maybe I'd be beyond. It would have just been a run of the mill dream. And, it's not like I saw her face. I recall Amy asking that when I texted her. How do I know it was her? Because I know. I fucking know. There is only one person it could be. 

That's why the whole thing is terrifying. It's why I couldn't get away fast enough in the dream. And why I'm writing a fucking blog about it four months later. I can't shake it. Her. The feeling. All of it. 

Because I liked it. I fucking liked it. 

I felt loved, comforted, safe. For that instant - because that's all it was... all I allowed - I was exactly where I wanted to be, where I was supposed to be. So of course I jumped out of her arms and out of the dream with a swiftness even Superman and the Road Runner might envy.

"...a nightmare dressed up like a daydream..." 

Yes, precisely. What should have been a dream quickly became a nightmare. Not because of her. God, I hope no one thinks that. It has absolutely nothing to do with her and absolutely EVERYTHING to do with me. I truly wish it didn't. I wish I could have enjoyed it for what it was. I wish I could wish it was real. Because part of me - the braver part - wishes it was....wishes it would be...wishes it could...be real. The rest of me - the 99% that's irredeemably cowardly - knows it never will be. Not with her, not with anyone. 

~

I know at least one reader who is so ready to call bullshit that she's reaching for her phone to text me. She'll say that's just my script, what I say to protect myself, that it's not true, not fact, not me. And yet...it is. It is me. It's who I've become, who I have to be. So in a way, she is right. I am protecting myself, just not with words as she assumes. Maybe one day I'll find my way back, but for now... I have the dreams and wishes of the braver 1%. Because anytime I close my eyes, I can be back there. Cool sheets, a sliver of moonlight, and her arms keeping me safe. That'll be enough. It has to be.