* ~ dream journal ~ *

I dreamt of Jojo. I woke up in a cushiony and warm bed, I was somewhere safe and comfortable. The colors were soft neutrals and pinks and blues. I didn't get a good look at my surroundings because as soon as I woke up I felt something stir in the blankets right on me and before I could react a little brown dog head pops out yawning from beyond the grave. I prop myself up, half sitting half lying down, to get a good look while Jojo slowly blinks his eyes and looks around and slowly at me. He had so much lint on him for some reason haha, and he can talk, he tells me “I had a really weird nap, mom” as his body is still caressed by the sheets. I gently slide the lint off his cute little sleepy face and tell him “go back to sleep sweetie”. He was so full of color he was almost glowing. I can still feel his warmth. It was a really nice dream. I wonder if it felt like a dream to him, too.

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This one isn't a dream, I just wanted to write this down

Hi dad, this is ________, I miss you and I love you and I hope wherever you are that you're happy and loved and free of any pain.

I tried the Boxing program at ____ today, it was nice, it reminded me of you the whole time. I had to buy wraps for my hands and I thought about the first time you wore wraps, if you thought they were too girly or if you felt pride in them or if you even noticed them at all. There's so many things I wish I could still ask you. I feel like I don't know you at all and I would hate for the world to forget you but how do I prevent that when I barely know anything about you. 

I guess that's not all true, I know you loved being a father, or my father at least. I know you loved your family to death and you would do anything for them. I know loyalty was such a virtue to you and you exemplified it every day. And I know you cared a lot about respect; how to give it and how to deserve it.

There were times in my life where I loved you and where I hated you. In the end, love always won, and I will always love you. You are one of, maybe top two, the most important people in my life. I will look for you everywhere, even when I'm not trying. My life is intertwined with yours, and even tho you're not here, I will do my best to keep your spirit alive while I'm on earth. Loving you is complicated, but I want to honor you and your memory. Thank you for giving me an amazing childhood, thank you for loving me the best you could despite your past, and thank you for never giving up on me and trying to make me the best version of myself I could be. I know I'm late, but I wish I loved you better and I'm sorry how your life turned out. In the next life, I promise I'll do better. Family should never be alone.

I almost forgot why I started writing this.

During boxing, the trainer gave me good tips, and I told him how surprised I was to hear them since I had seen you (my dad) box back in the day. And he said “when you get home you can tell your dad what you learned today” and I said “yeah, I will”.

And for a couple seconds I got to imagine a life where you're still at home and I can come see you any time I miss you and be lucky enough to say good night to you, every night or get breakfast at IHOP anytime you wanted. And I thought about how we take everything for granted and how short and cruel life can be and how “life is unfair” like you always used to say and how I would do anything to see you one more time and tell you I love you. 

But thank you for showing me all this so that I never have to learn this again. 

When I see you in my dreams, do you see me too?

I dreamt I was alone in my new apartment when I received a knock at the door. It was dark out and the street I live on is usually busy but it sounded so quiet through the door. I heard you (Sergio) speak, asking to be let in but something felt off. Before I could blink you knocked again, hard, and tried opening the door. My new locks were starting to wear out already and I could see glimpses of you through the cracks by the frame. I pleaded with you to stop and I asked what you were doing here while I was pushing against the door. I was using all my weight to keep it shut when I noticed you brought some muscle, some tall and big guy that looked like the singer for this one band I like. You could tell he was just there for the money and he wanted to get the job done. He was breaking my door open when Sergio finally started talking, saying I owe him money from our Peru trip. That's when I stopped and yelled back “THAT'S what this is about!?” I glared at him with what little clearance we had and shouted “You said I could pay you back in JANUARY remember!?” And he stopped completely, his muscle guy stopped too and just stared at him like “bro..”. I was furious but relieved at the same time. He drives me insane with his stupidity, even in my dreams.

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I dreamt I woke up the day after my birthday party, and I was hit with such a thick wave of shock and sadness, for I had missed my own birthday party. But I was also scared that I may have accumulated additional costs for anything that may have gone wrong. I checked my phone and saw that the pool owner had tried contacting me for Matt spilling alcohol on the floor and I was like “oh no oh shit what happened how bad is it”. I have few memories of the ‘day’ before, either the dream happened in reverse or it was from the dream earlier in the night. But I dreamt Sergio was helping me prepare for the party I think, and it was the day of the party and we were loading my friends and family into a big truck heading over there but it ran out of room so Sergio couldn't fit so I elected to stay with him. And as the truck drove off he came running out of my grandma's house (which was the meeting point for some reason) holding some paper towels and yelling to wait for him, he looked off at it in the middle of the street and looked so sad yelling dont leave. It wasn't until he looked across the street that he saw me there too and he said you stayed? And I said “of course, I wouldn’t leave you” but as soon as I said that it felt like reality shifted and he looked at me with a completely different expression. He wasn't sad anymore, he looked betrayed and angry, he looked at me like he saw right through me and I didn't realize until I woke up that he looked at me like that because I told him so many times I wouldn't leave him but in the end I ultimately did. I know I shouldn't feel too guilty, it'd be worse to stay and continue to hurt each other. But how do you not feel bad after telling your fiance you will stay with them forever just to end things after a year.

So anyways later in the dream, back to when I woke up the day after, I heard Sergio on the phone with Vince and Vince was yelling at him pretty harshly, looked serious. I called Vince from my phone but I can't remember if he answered, I just wanted to see why he got so mad. Which is kinda sucky, I shouldn't be ok with Vince talking to anyone like that. But I need to realize it's not my place to correct them, they're adults, but they're also my friends. Why is Sergio in my dreams? I haven't dreamt of him at all during the breakup. But I guess part of my mind still thinks we're together.

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I dreamt I was walking around some ‘city-walk’ type area with Austin. We were just hanging out as friends and it was nice, chill. We walked into a small concert venue/alt-restaurant type kitchy store. It looked like we had tickets to see a performance so we got into our seats; it was dark and it looked like we were the last ones to complete the audience. We were seated for maybe 20 seconds and I was excited to see the show until Austin's girlfriend (how i imagined she looked) saw us. She was a waiter there and looked at us like we were ghosts and then looked into austin’s eyes and said “Fuck you” and stormed off angrily and so hurt. I put it together that he broke up with her against her wishes and she must have thought he was going out with me. We left immediately out of courtesy, Austin just headed straight to the doors of the lobby (which was well lit and had glass doors to let the light in). Caitlyn stormed into a corner of the lobby, heading towards some private rooms I assumed were there. Before she could reach them I changed my direction to go towards her. Austin looked back, confused I wasn't by his side anymore and saw that I was going towards her and he held out his arm a bit asking for me to come back but I had just reached her and put both my hands on her upper arms/shoulders. I turned her around to look at me so I could look her in her crying eyes and tell her “I’m sorry”. I wanted to hug her and I think I did. She froze but didn't pull away. She was still sobbing, I could feel her gently reverberate with each gasp for air. She asked me why I said I was sorry. I told her that this wasn't what she thought, that me and Austin are just friends and that I was seeing someone else anyways. Austin was behind me facing us and looked so sad but wordless almost like he had no air. But it looked like that was all that Caitlyn needed to hear. She stopped crying, took some time to compose herself. Also she was shorter than me in the dream, I should've said that earlier (in real life she towers over me). I can’t remember what happened after but I know it wasn't heavy.

I think I know why I’m dreaming of him more. He finally has a girlfriend and I'm not used to my exes moving on as terrible as that may sound. I’m lonely, and I don't feel like many (or even a few) people really know me or love me. But my romantic partners know me at such an intimate vulnerable level. They know things about me that I don't even know. When I lose all my thoughts and memories they will be the only ones to keep my spirit going. I know that logic is very flawed and not a healthy thought to have. And I know my exes probably know a lot less of me than I think, also they knew me back then, not as I am now. Still though. We used to have such a strong and deep bond. It's hard just leaving that completely and starting new over and over again. I feel like there are so many people who know just tiny bits and pieces of me, I want someone who knows a majority, I want to feel understood and accepted, and not have to explain myself so much or feel left out. My therapist says I crave validation and would try to find it from other men. I think she has a point, I would not feel acceptable until I had someone's deep full attention and devotion to me. Why can't I just exist and that be enough. And, I told her ‘sorry’ in the dream because I secretly still want Austin on my side, and I feel so guilty about it. I want him and her to be so happy, I want him to have a family with her and marry her. I just don't want to lose him, I don't want to be at the finish line with everyone and still be alone, wondering why no one’s with me.

I'm working on it.

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Dreamt Stephany killed us all in a motorcycle accident (drive of a cliff of course). When I hit the trees it felt like sliding into my bed. My eyes were squeezed shut but when I opened I was in my bedroom, but I didn't recognize it. Stephany was there sleeping too but I was in shock. For some reason I Knew I wasn't dreaming so I thought this must be purgatory. And I walked outside into a beautiful summer island oasis, which was weird because from the inside of the house the windows showed it was dark and snowy outside. Stephany kept calling my name but I was trying to figure out where I was and how to fix this. The stuffed animals were all alive, things were cute but I knew I was walking the line between 2 worlds and I was terrified to lose this one. The rest of my family appeared and my memory is fuzzy but they start to become demonic all of them, I think something was pretending to be them. And they said I had to defeat them in a challenge in order to return. I was frozen, they were ultra powerful, agile and skilled, there was no way I'd win unless I had those advantages too. But then I saw my dad, he was going to show me his powers and skill too so I had to follow him outside but he looked normal he didn't look demonic. I was scared and confused. As I was walking behind him I asked “dad, can I talk to you about something” but he said not now because he had to show me his type of challenge and it was just a balancing act which he scored low points on. I think that's his way of discreetly supporting me, he wants me to win. I said can I wait a few weeks or months to challenge it and he said yes but it had to be before my birthday (which is coming up in 2 weeks). He also somehow turned into a sand wizard for his challenge and was keeping a ball in the air while hitting it with sand tentacles.

There was a part about [my old company] asking if jelly was FOD, a part with the mom from Peru and her daughter but the daughter was 5. And at the end a part with Lizardo working in the [my university] tutoring center, I kept trying to talk to him to ask for real help but he kept telling me to get another tutor and how to make them say yes and asked if I wanted a chicken bake. I remember the water at the oasis part was so so cold.

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