The man of my dreams is actually a pesky ghost that haunts me all the time.
Thoughts on infatuation, idealization, and the merits and pitfalls of a long-lasting, far-fetched teenage-into-early-adulthood crush. Lordy.
I had the dream again last week, though it’s been years since the last time it happened: I am going about my day, maybe about to sit down for dinner or just getting home from wherever I was in my dreamland before this, and he shows up and asks if he can stay a while. I can never remember what we talk about but I remember the nearness, the normalcy, the needing to be ourselves and needing to be known by each other. Often, we lie on the floor. Often, we stare up at the ceiling. Our proximity is electric. Even my dream-self can feel her heart thumping in her throat.
The man in the dream is the boy that I was infatuated with as a teen and young twenty-something: a tall slightly-older-than-me guy who drove a VW van, was in a band, had a smattering of artsy tattoos, and had about eight million dreams that made something come alive in me.
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