Last night I dreamt I was in love.
No declarations. No cinematic kiss. Nothing to wake up from thinking: well done, script department.
We were at home. He was in a dressing gown. I needed to go out and run some errands. Before I left, he gave me the keys to his motorbike.
That was all. And that was exactly what undid me: the ordinariness of it. The keys passing from one hand to the other. No questions, no explanations.
In the dream I was happy. Not film happy. Ordinary happy. Which might be even better.
Then I woke up. For a few seconds the feeling stayed. Then came the emptiness. At first I thought I missed him. Then I realised that wasn’t quite it.
The details become enormous
That man really existed. So did the closeness. And the trust. But not necessarily the story I had begun building in my head.
There were no promises. There were gestures that meant a great deal to me. Perhaps they meant something different to him.
A gesture can be intimate without being a promise.
Someone can seek us out, desire us, sleep beside us, trust us. And still not love us the way we want. It is a simple sentence. When you are living it, though, there is nothing simple about it.
I have always been someone who notices the details. How he comes back. How long he stays. How he looks at you. How he sleeps beside you. The trouble is, when we like someone, we become excellent film editors.
Five true things, put in the right order, can look like a love story. Not because we are stupid. Because we hope.
My way of avoiding rejection
When I realised I was feeling too much, I didn’t say so. I created confusion. I moved closer, then pulled away. I said one thing and hinted at another. Then I disappeared.
In effect, I was trying to make him be the one to leave. Then I wouldn’t have to say the sentence that frightened me: I want you more than you want me.
It wasn’t much of a strategy. But when we are afraid, we are rarely brilliant.
The photograph
I still have a photograph of him asleep beside me. I remember watching him to make sure he was sleeping well.
For years I could have looked at that photograph wondering what the night had meant to him. Today I am more interested in what it says about me.
It says I was capable of caring. That I was tender. That I was letting someone in far more than I showed. And yes, I was involved. Probably more than I wanted to admit.
Sometimes I would like someone to lean on
For a long time I have been used to holding myself up. And I know how to do it. But knowing how to stand on your own doesn’t mean wanting to do it all the time, with nobody to lean on.
I don’t mean being rescued, or having someone put my life in order. I mean an embrace. The feeling that, for five minutes, I don’t have to be the one checking that everything is all right.
Sometimes I would like to be the one who gets to close his eyes.
Perhaps that is another reason the photograph still affects me. I was awake. He was asleep. I was making sure he could rest. And part of me, perhaps, wanted to know what it felt like on the other side.
What the dream left behind
If I could speak to the man I was then, I wouldn’t tell him to confess his love. I wouldn’t tell him to take the plunge either. I would tell him to protect himself, but not so well that he stopped feeling anything.
In the dream I wasn’t looking for signs. I wasn’t wondering where I stood in his life. I wasn’t preparing my escape. He was in a dressing gown. I had errands to run. He had given me the keys to his motorbike. And I was in love.
We spend years imagining grand proofs of love, and then the brain builds happiness at night out of a dressing gown and a set of keys. Perhaps it knows something.
When I woke, he was no longer there. But something remained: the part of me that still knows how to love.