Dreaming

I had a dream last night that he gave me all his love. All his love came in an email. It was crazy- 10 pages long including mad pictures. He told me about his family, his job, his summer shenanigans. Yes, even the shenanigans. He told me about his grandfather and how his father was his caretaker. He calls his grandfather his “Paupa”. It was sweet!

I hadn’t heard from him in months. The weeks seemed like years and the months seemed like decades. It had gotten to the point where I no longer believed he had any feelings for me at all. Though the email did not express his love explicitly, it was indirect yet long-windedly obvious. He once told me love is like a corporation. It’s an investment of your care and your time. He showed me it was an investment of your senses, your faith and - my favorite- your degree of involvement.

In brief moments we had spent time together. We made our memories talking, laughing, dancing, and eating together. Brief moments- only minutes, if that. We had talked about our plans for our future. We would have a house with a fireplace and eat apples from our own apple tree. We would have three kids and travel to distant places together, Brazil, Fiji, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Sierra Leone. And we would laugh about how ludicrous we sounded. And then he would remind me that he only required my okay. Before parting ways, we would dance to our favorite artists, intimately, slowly.

I gave him my okay one day. One day too late. I expressed my feelings to this man and he smiled in my face, kissed my cheek, and walked away from me. At first I thought he would be back in a moment. But, no! No response. This was the last time we had a moment together. Afterwards it was the most informal and impersonal way of communicating- brief texts replaced brief moments. I suppose he needed more than my okay. I figured maybe he had a closeted secret, so to speak, or he was being facetious with his words and his actions.

I retreated. I actually went on a retreat. It was a weekend retreat for singles who wanted to reach deeper self-awareness in order to heal from being lonely and dejected and possibly meet a man who feels just as pitiful. It was otherwise known as the singles retreat sponsored by the church. I read books and watched movies for awhile. My music didn’t help because it all reminded me of him. He was jazz, reggae, rock-n-roll, and any other derivative of soul all rolled into one.

After my retreat into greater self-awareness and the avoidance of past reminders, I picked myself up and went back out into the dating world. And what a world it is! Duplicitous, jobless, uneducated, fathers with multiple women, post-incarcerated, pre-incarcerated, selfish creeps were the men I met. Each seemed to be more of the same. No variety. No center. No direction. Just lost clones with a low attention span.

So, I moved on from dating. I decided to focus on my dreams and stop working for a paycheck alone. I wanted to work for a paycheck and a plan. The first step into me was buying a mortgage. When my lease ended, my job transferred me from the boonies to an office in the city closer to my new home. Once I settled into my new digs, the second step was getting a consulting job. That was around the last time I heard from him. We had texted a conversation to each other. Updates and congrats were given back and forth, back and forth. I silently missed him, and as usual he was a busy bee.

With my last step of renewal I wasn’t sure if it would be to visit my mom in Dallas or visit my dad in Argentina. But something told me that I needed to visit one of them and let them be matchmaker. I was getting older not younger. Meaning my chances for three children were sadistically waning and my looks needed even more creams and potions. It was either to let my aging and eager parents play matchmaker or adopt a child from somewhere, like Kenya.

I chose to go to Argentina and visit my dad and my grandparents, whom he visited each year. My grandmother was ready too! She had two eligible men to introduce me to. I was not too excited, but I knew from my father and mother that the men were genuine and honored their women. Why not, right? I had my passport, my bags packed, and gifts to bring everyone.

The week before my trip in my tiny backyard, the first apples from the lone apple tree began to ripen. I thought of my past friend, the love I had that had never been there for me in return. I took some apples and went inside to wash them. I took out a small bowl and placed them inside. Those were for me. I took a Polaroid of the apple tree, wrote a brief memory on the back, and put that in an envelope. I wasn’t sure where he lived. It had been a few months so I addressed it to the last address I had for him. It would be forwarded. My last gesture. I mailed it that day not knowing or really caring if it would reach him.

Then, the night before my trip I went to bed ready to embark on new relationships. However, I woke up ready to continue with the last one. I had received a long-awaited, detailed email so I excitedly pulled out my laptop to read it in its entirety.

Oh, but it was only a dream.