A restaurant I used to work at 40 years ago had a reunion. It got me to reminiscing about an old girlfriend. I hadn’t talked to her since 1982 or so. We went together for about a year and a half.
So I thought I’d look her up, see where she is. I found a likely candidate, way out in Santa Monica. That’s where she was from originally. And it seems she is a Doctor of Psychology, which also made sense.
She had wanted to be a Doctor.
Her Website had a message center, where you could set up an appointment by message, and a phone number, and also a picture of her. No doubt in my mind that was my girl.
It took a few hours to screw up my courage and send her a message. I cant recall exactly what I wrote. And the pity is --what tortures me is—that after sending the message you have no copy of whatever idiot thing you might have written!
Agghhh! What have I done?
A day went by. No return message. Did I give her my correct email? A week went by. How dumb was that message I sent. Then two weeks gone; she must hate my guts, even after all these years. But on the sliding scale of breakups it wasn’t nasty, it wasn’t dramatic, it probably fell somewhere between the thrill is gone and disappointment. She could never have a bitter heart.
So I wondered should I inflict myself on her further by calling? Perhaps when I sent the message, I messed up on my return email address.
And then the dreams started…
I was sitting at a bus station, phone in hand. I called and left a message. A few minutes later a woman is walking by me. Its her! Wearing the cranberry floweredy knee length skirt she used to wear
I called her name "******" and she turned and looked, but didn’t notice me and turned away.
"******" again, and she turns, and turns away again.
So I said “****** “ a third time, and she turned and this time she saw me.
She came over where I was and started explaining that she didn’t want me to try to contact her any more.
“Hi Steve! I got your message at the office. And I saw you called a while ago” she said and smiled “but you shouldn’t call again”
Her voice was perfect, her mannerism’s, just like I remembered.
She was really cool, California cool and laid back. I never saw her mad, but she was excitable in a happy kind of way, and really really mature for her age. Me, I was 24 going on 14. Somehow after all these years I still remember her birthday as being March 16. The day before St. Patty's.
You would think a dream like that would prevent you from calling, right? Not me baby. In for a dime, in for a dollar. I came this far so what the hell…
It went to a recorder. “Dr. ****** cannot take your call right now but if you leave your name and number we’ll be glad to get right back with you….BEEP” and so I left my message.
Unlike my written message (from what I recall) I kept it shorter and sweeter. A keyboard is a dangerous thing in my hands. God only knows how creative I got. How charmingly idiotic I might have tried to be.
Its been a month or so. I guess that would be the end of it. Of all my girlfriends in the past, there is only her and one other that is not still a friend that I see and talk with from time to time.
~But I did have one more dream.
I was cooking for ******. A pasta dish, glasses of wine poured, flowers on the counter, silverware and china on the table. She was ****** from 1981, 20 years old. I was Steve of present day, 60 years old. But she didn’t seem to notice. As we were talking I wanted to reveal to her that I wasn’t present day Steve, that I had come from a dream, I had come from a future, and started to speak.
“You are going to have a great life, ******. You’ll meet lots of men. You’ll stop playing with frogs, except in school. You’ll give up golf, and tour the Alps. You’ll trade fishing from my piece of shit boat for scuba tanks and Cozumel. There will be loves found and lost and found again, puppy dog tails, honeysuckles, and Dom Perignon. You’ll go to France. You’ll study hard. You’ll be a doctor.”
“How do you know all this?” she asked.
And I knew better. I knew I’d gone as far as you can go in a dream. I knew I wasn’t supposed to say, not in a dream, but I couldn’t help it. I looked deep into her eyes, then down at the ground.
My voice cracked a little. "Because I’m not really here, ******. I’m just visiting in a dream” and I looked back up to her.
And she was gone. Gone.
Just me, the steam from the pasta, and the Cabernet.
Two Things
(1)Never reveal that its a dream to some one you are dreaming of,
(2) Not all who are lost want to be found.
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