Deborah sent out a group text to me and Amy describing a dream she’d had about Chris. It was a beautiful dream, a visit from a great supporter at a time in her life when she probably needed to hear the things he had to say to her. As I read her text though, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. It’s been a while since I have dreamed of Chris. In some ways, that’s good. My dreams of Chris are often not good ones. I am sure it’s because of my own projections of inadequacy and how I failed him in the end. Feelings only I have. I would still take this angry disappointed version of him visiting my dreams. There’s a part of me that relishes the abuse.

That night after Deborah’s text, I dreamed of Chris. We were making out in his dorm room. It was so real, like I wasn’t sleeping, but time traveling back to our early days. I could feel his lips touching mine, his tongue grazing over my teeth. The heat of our breath mingled together and it was delicious. There was no speaking, only touching and I woke up disappointed in not seeing his face next to me on the pillow. I thought about how two days before he died he asked me if that when I got home from work, we could have sex. I said yes. I said yes to everything he asked for then. I didn’t end up going to work that day and we did not have sex. Chris’s decline was quick. He was in no physical shape for it and I, recognizing that we only had hours left, was in no emotional state for it. Instead, I curled myself up next to him and cried while I waited for the hospice nurse to show up.

Coward

It was a craving for human touch that sent me into the world of online dating. All of those ridiculous dates and I could never bring myself to touch any of those men. None of them bold enough to make an approach. Except Michael, but he already had ideas that I was only online for the sex. Maybe that made him braver than all the others. I’ve never been good at initiating and I’m not ambitious. Chris and I probably would still be in friend zone if he hadn’t made the first move. It is quite the quandary to crave physical affection without being able to easily give physical affection. I’m polite….”no, you first.” The reality is that even now, I feel awkward and gangly and geeky and have no idea what to do with myself in a situation of want. Except freeze like I’ve been caught in headlights. Swerve or crash. It’s up to the one behind the wheel.

Intimacy is so much easier in written words. Safer. A better way to communicate. I feel like I lack the ability to verbally communicate in a way that the people around me understand what it is that I am really saying.

I’m better off writing letters.