These Dreams of You

I had a dream about you last night. I usually have a dream with you in it every few months or so. This time it was different because I can't talk to you in reality so I guess all I have are my dreams to work things out and come to terms with the fact that I won't be talking to you anytime soon. My subconscious is mean like that because what I'm actually trying to do is forget that you exist. It seems that's the only way I can have peace right now.

I think about you every day. Every. Damn. Day. This is cruel and a little strange because I don't remember thinking of you everyday before I couldn't talk to you. But maybe it's just that I never noticed it before. Or maybe it's psychological, as in, I know I can't talk to you, therefore that's all I want to do: to tell you things, share something with you, remind you of a moment from 10 or 15 or 19 years ago when we first became friends.

I don't understand why it has to be this way. I mean, I do, but I don't know why you've allowed it to happen. I can't wrap my brain around the fact that you're okay with this so I know that you can't possibly be. Still, here I am, without my oldest friend.

I know you. I know you better than you think I do because I've spent half of my life with you as my best friend; watching, observing, listening, noticing and understanding. That's what I do.

I'm trying so hard to remember that this situation is just that: a situation. There's no way you would've come to this conclusion unprovoked and, in a different world, your wife and I would get along. I'm not a hard person to get along with and, somehow, you found a woman who hates me for reasons I cannot understand. No one can. Or maybe you can? It's hard to tell when you won't communicate how this all went down.

I've said a lot of things to you over the past weeks out of anger, frustration, disbelief, sadness, rage and shock. But I meant it all at the time and I won't apologize for it. It is possible for you to be both people: my friend and her husband. You say your life is different now but I think you're fooling yourself. Your life may be different but you are still you. The you I know is still there. I know this because you always have been there through everything.

So, it sucks that I can't talk to you and tell you about my dream where you were first angry with me and then sad and then apologetic and then distant and then finally understanding and then, ultimately, my friend again. And perhaps I should switch gears from trying to convince myself you don't exist to trying to convince myself that you're dead. Because that is what this feels like: a death. I know the actual you, the you I know and have known all this time, is still there; I'm just not permitted to talk to him anymore.

Merry Christmas.