Doug

I dreamed of you last night.

I can't remember a lot of specifics other than seeing you and seeing some pictures of you as well as someone with the name "Kurt" written to identify him. In my mind I thought "Oh yeah, that's Doug's brother" even though in my waking state I know your brother's name is Mark. You came over to talk to me and something was mentioned about your brother. You said, "Do you actually remember my brother?" I admitted that I hadn't remembered him until I saw the image with his name written on it.

I said that you probably remember me crushing on you and being crazy. Lol For some reason you walked across the room and gave me a hug. You felt thin and I could feel your bones in the prolonged hug. 

When the hug ended I mentioned how you were always so much cooler than me all those years ago. I said that I had been awkward and insecure. I mentioned that you always had so much knowledge about music and were so much more interesting than I had ever been.

When I woke, I lingered in bed briefly thinking about you.

When I got out of bed, I creeped on your Facebook page looking for a clue about what the meaning and symbolism was hidden in a dream about you.

"Happy Birthday, Doug!" appears repeatedly through the years 

You seem to have a happy life with Rena. It's rare for people to find each other and have a happy life together. You actually seem to like each other after all of these years together. That's not common and certainly something I have never experienced. Twenty-three years of an unhappy marriage leaves me feeling doubtful of the likelihood of me ever experiencing that.

I thought more about the dream and what it could mean. I resisted the urge to reach out to you directly to tell you I had dreamed about you. I told myself, "It's not actually about the real him, it's about what he represents to me." So I closed out Facebook but continued to think about you.

I remembered who I was when I met you and all of the regrets I had surrounding that time. I crushed hard on you, but why? What was it about you that I was drawn to? 

Hands down, it was your sense of humor. You were so silly and funny. The trauma I experienced in childhood left me humorless, sullen and brainwashed.

Oh yes, I was still very religiously brainwashed. I remember a conversation we had about God once. You talked effortlessly about not believing in a God. That was unfathomable to me at the time. I must have thought I couldn't exist without that crutch of believing someone else had my power and I was just a helpless sinner. It took me a long to dismantle all the beliefs that had been forced fed to me.

I felt so inadequate being around you and your friends. You would have all of these conversations about current events and politics and I was completely ignorant about it all. I simply said that I didn't pay attention to all of that stuff because I didn't want to depress myself. You were aghast at that response. Current me can completely understand why you would react that way. 

That sad and embarrassing person I used to be doesn't exist anymore. Unfortunately, it took quite a long time for me to fully develop into a person who is more healed, open minded, and with depth enough to have conversations about current events. 

You will probably never know her, but, thankfully, I do now.

Maybe I dreamed of you because I still need to keep trying to connect with my sense of humor. 

Yes, I actually have a sense of humor now, but I don't connect with that part me as much as I would like to. Life feels so heavy lately that I have forgotten to laugh, you know?

Anyway, if you ever Google your name David Douglass Carney⁴, maybe you will stumble upon this random musing.

I hope all is well with you.