A nightmare

Monday 8/3/26

I had a nightmare last night in which I was at college at the start of it. I've had a lot of nightmares like this over the past year. My good friend from when I was in college was in this dream. I didn't really have any others in actuality. Some people I knew, yes, but not close friends. My first two years of high school were the same. Then, we moved the summer after my sophomore year. I went to an all boys school for the last two years and had no friends. In those two years, I didn't even go to the cafeteria once for lunch. That's how bad it was. I wouldn't eat all day until I got home after school. During lunch I stayed in the library and studied.

In the dream, my college friend had a significant other and we didn't see other very much. I was on my own. I ate alone. Never had anyone to do anything with. This got to be too much for me and one weekend I left and returned to where I'd come from, which in the dream resembled this town where I lived in Connecticut for those first two years of high school called Ridgefield, though it wasn't just Ridgefield; it was more like Ridgefield with Rockport laid atop it.

The place was beautiful in the dream. Everything you saw looking out the window was itself like a dream of autumn. These terraced fields with a farm set deep amongst them, valleys full of falling leaves. I played in a hockey game during that weekend and did really well and also received acclaim for this thing I'd written commensurate with what that thing was.

I was dreading having to go back. I was also sad about not having my friend anymore. The two of us being so distant. It wasn't that he had done anything wrong, per se, but we were more like passing strangers. I started to write him a long text, and one I kept working on as I was riding in the car--looking up to steal glances at this beautiful spot, this dream of autumn-- with the person who had been my only close friend in high school before we moved and I had none. But I also knew I couldn't stay here, that there was no going back, and this wasn't really real as something that could be a thing for me moving forward in my life.

I pictured the scene back on campus with me upstairs in the dining hall where it was darker, which was where I'd go so fewer people could see me. Alone. Always alone. I had to fly back on Sunday, and on Saturday as the day wore on I tried to figure out what I could do and see the next day, which wasn't to be a full day because of my flight, in this place I liked, where I'd felt less alone, even if it was just for a weekend, trying to tell myself that the hours would feel long and I wasn't really leaving that soon.

I know what a lot of this means. Why I had this dream and dreams like it. I have many of them. Maybe someone would think this wasn't a nightmare in actuality, but these dreams are so sad to me, and the weight of their sadness crushes me, and that I have them, and that this is my life, is even sadder, so I call them nightmares.