The psyche knows these seasons. The mind and heart know the ache of April.
Two or three nights ago I dreamed I saw an ex (the one that lives out here). She was getting on a crowded elevator. I was already standing in the back of the elevator. She was clenched-teeth pissed at me and trying to push her way back to where I was standing. I was bracing myself for the confrontation, hoping to de-escalate. At a different point maybe in a different dream from the same night, she seemed lean-on-me drunk and almost friendly towards me. The physical closeness felt familiar in the way two people know each other feels familiar. In one or both versions of the dream, we eventually ended up agreeing to talk things over over beers at lunch. Shortly after waking up, with the dream clinging to me like a heavy fog, I wrote the details down. I have pretty boring, non-fantastical, dreams. Why I don’t have more rainbow colored pandas, flying chariots, and rain clouds dropping rusty nails on gelatinous hills in my dreams, I’m not sure.
She (the ex) is usually on my mind, if not at the periphery of my thinking, this time of year. That’s only a half-truth. She is one of a handful of people (family and friends) who cross my mind at least once a day. I can’t quantify these things, but I know they happen. I know I think about my friends from State College a few times a week. I know I think about some of my family and ex-family on a daily basis. The group chat I’m on keeps those friends front of mind on most days. Facebook puts people in front of me every day… which only now strikes me as a strange and unnatural concept, because most of them are not people I would think about on a daily basis (or ever).
I can’t define what “crossing my mind” means other than to say that sometimes it’s a memory, sometimes it’s a mental argument, sometimes it’s a curiosity. I’m sure there are a lot of times it’s just a passing thought. One time, I was out at a bar. It was crowded with young people. It reminded me of my first date with this ex when we wandered into a bar/club (also full of young people). We called them (the young people) baby bankers. The memory made me laugh which made it into my smile/gratitude journal for the day.
At least once every week or two (in real life), I have a mini mental argument with her (the ex I had the dream about). You know these types of arguments – the ones that take place entirely in your head. The ones we use to role-play just in case we find ourselves in a real argument. In these imaginary arguments, she’s usually pissed that I moved so close. I’m usually fumbling for evidence that I had tried to move out this way years ago. Just the other day I came across such “evidence” in the form of an old email from June, 2019 (just two months after she ended things). I had applied for a job with a foundation out here (I was looking for the email because the job opened up again and I applied again and I got rejected again). Finding the email, I felt a slight sense of smug and righteous vindication. A mic-drop feeling of “take that” at the end of a silly, imaginary argument. Sometimes, in the imaginary argument, I’m reminding her that she was the person who thought I’d like San Francisco and would sometimes call me her Cali boy.
She couldn’t have been more right in how much I’d like it here. When I follow that train of thought, sometimes I’ll think about the things she bought me (A Vans flannel, hoodies, knit cap, messenger bag) and how it might have been an attempt to re-make me in the image of a San Francisco guy (these things are always fashionable out here). When I follow that train of thought, I begin to wonder if we were lopsided in how well we knew each other – which would have stemmed from being lopsided in how much we shared with each other. The short version of those imaginary conversations is that she might have had a better sense of my essence than I did of hers. The short version of those conversations is that we might have stood a better chance had we moved out here. I probably fit better into her west-coast world than she fit into my east-coast world.
I suspect one of those imaginary arguments/conversations prompted the dream (or maybe it’s the season).
A more accurate rephrasing of that half-truth about being on the periphery of my thinking this time of year is that she’s on my mind more often and in a more tangible sense this time of year. It was a really nice day in April that she ended things. Weather and lighting and smells (what I broadly think of as daily, weekly, monthly, or annual seasons) have a way of triggering memories. On Wednesday of this week, as I was walking around town and looking for an outside bar where I could have a beer in the fading light of the late afternoon sun, I was reminded of the time she and I met up at an outside bar after work on a similarly pleasant day in Philly. In that moment, I was thinking that’s what I miss most – not just about that relationship, but relationships in general. The “hey, let’s meet up and unwind and talk about our day over a beer in the sun” moments. And I have to admit, in that particular moment on Wednesday, and because I don’t currently have that type of a person in my life, she was the person I could most easily picture having the beer with. It might have been a vestige from the dream still floating in my head or simply because that was what we did. This is when I tell myself I need to get some more friends.
It’s also in those brief moments of reverie and remembrance that I remind myself that when she left she said she hated the way we lived together – which I sometimes (perhaps incorrectly) assume meant the meet up for a beer on a sunny day way of living together… and well, I happen to like that part of my life. I liked it then and I like it now. And I guess I’d prefer the type of relationship where those moments become representative of the many small pleasantries two people fall into and enjoy with each other… where those moments become the everyday norm of joyful companionship – the things we look forward to, not resent.
I had started to write about some of this a few days ago (just after the dream). Then an automatic update messed up the code on this site and created server errors that sidetracked me for a bit. I returned to it in earnest when I tried to explore that strange pull of wanting to grab a beer together (or craving that type of normalcy again). I used to get upset with myself when I fell into periods of remembrance. I used to think the internal monologue that said I still think fondly of this person or I’d still look forward to meeting them after work was an indication of having failed to move on. I’m less critical of myself now. I think I’m wiser – maybe softer. Now, I just see it as a natural part of life, loss, grief, and memory. And I’m not sure you get through a life on this planet without experiencing those things.
She was, and I assume still is, a good and warm person. I liked her (and us) a lot. I’m tremendously grateful for the time we had together and for the growth that came as a result of that loss. And for every instance of one of those internal arguments, I probably have four or five other instances that are reminders of what I liked in that relationship. Reminders of the life I’m enjoying now and hope to once again share with someone who can match my enthusiasm and irrational exuberance.
Spring is a time of renewal. It is, or can be a time of optimism. I was beyond optimistic then. I feel a similar yet different sense of optimism now. And maybe that’s what the dream was trying to tell me – I woke up before the ending, but there was a sense of resolution to it – maybe on the horizon after the sun has set… it was a familiar sense of warm comfort, like sharing beers in the warm glow of the late day springtime sun.