Curse of Dreams

I don't usually post this early, but I woke up a few hours ago and haven't been able to sleep. I'm tired as heck, the light hurts my eyes, my brain's far from 'awake', and sleep refuses to come. My dreams haunt me, chasing me, and won't let me get a decent rest.

It wasn't always this way: once, my dreams were simplistic. I would be sitting in a tree, watching the sun set, or on a beach watching the ocean, or by a window watching the rain. But over time, people joined me: first Sarah, sitting nearby and chattering, then Anh and Tiffany would be standing nearby talking, then...him. Once he entered my dreams, he never left, and the simplicity was forced into complexity.

While the simple dreams let me sleep and truly rest, they vanished from my mind moments after I woke - but these new complex dreams force my mind to stay awake, burning their vivid details into my memory and refusing to let me forget.

I wish I could forget them.

It's gotten to the point now where I don't mind going to bed early, even if I don't get any sleep, because my dreams are so much happier than reality - in my dreams, he's always there, and in reality he doesn't seem to care. In dreams, I can smile and laugh, and in reality those self-same actions are lies. In dreams...

It's like an Evanescence song I once heard, "Cloud Nine": "I'm not afraid to dream, to sleep, sleep forever." It goes on to say "guess it wasn't real after all, guess it wasn't real all along...In a dream, will you give your love to me? Beg my broken heart to beat, save my life - change my mind." Which is exactly what my dreams have become...an 'alternate reality' I can escape to whenever reality tries to break me - an alternate reality where everything is perfect, and he is always waiting. I know it isn't healthy to look at dreams this way, but it's true: my happiness exists in dreams.

Roller Coaster?

Wow. Yesterday was crap. Today was...well, not amazing - but very close to it. There were two main points that really mattered, so I'll just skip the rest.

Okay: so one, there was a blood drive at school today. I was able to sign up (I'm finally old enough!!), so I donated today...I was waiting like two, close to three hours though O_x missed all of fifth period (Japanese), all of lunch, and part of seventh (Math Analysis). And now I can't bend my elbow because of the bandage stuff, so it was really hard to write the notes in math...but the guy who sits in front of me, who is the most amazing guy ever, was nice and helped with some of it.

Which brings me to point two: said most amazing guy is even more amazing than I can even try to explain. For one, during math he was really helpful...he let me press my hands against his back because I was freezing - the small gym, where they did the drive, was seriously a freezer - and he didn't complain or anything even though his back had to have been getting cold, and he helped me erase some stuff I'd gotten wrong (if I clench my right hand, the place they stuck the needle in really hurts), and he kept glancing back at me to ask if I was okay, if I was warm enough, etc., and he was...well, just the most amazing friend ever. And THEN, as if that wasn't enough...well, actually, the majority of this happened earlier, before I'd given blood. At break, he asked if I was "one of them" and had seen Twilight last night, to which I replied I hadn't and probably wouldn't be seeing it because all my friends were busy, mom didn't want to drive me over if I was going to see it by myself, etc. And he, being the amazing person he is, offered to see it with me! I was stubborn, really, and kept saying it was okay, I didn't want to torture him (he'd been saying the day before in AP Bio that he just flat-out wasn't interested in seeing the movie) but after math, I asked if he had been serious about that offer...he said he had...so now we're going to see it next weekend!

And that pretty much summarizes the main points of my day. So now, I shall go curl up on the couch with a random book, turn the radio up, and hum random songs to myself as I sip a cup of hot chocolate.

Or I would, except I'm about to head out to a write-in and dinner for NaNoWriMo - one of the ML's (Municipal Liaisons) for the Sacramento area is having her birthday today, so we're all heading out to dinner to celebrate - and therefore cannot curl up and read and sip hot chocolate right now. Darn...

Falling Apart yet again

I don't even know where to start, I'm so scattered and stressed right now. I guess the least-stressful thing would be best.

So I mentioned in the last post how a friend recommended asking the guy I like if he wanted to see Twilight, right? Well, I mentioned it to another friend, so she agreed to help me ask...so today during AP Bio she brought up the subject - and he basically said he wasn't interested in seeing the movie at all. So that sorta killed it there: if he's not interested, I'm not going to ask.

Then today, when I got home, my dad was in a really bad mood, so he's been yelling at everyone and generally making everyone tense and on edge. Basically, the situation at home is bad. I can't wait to go off to college, to get the heck out of this house and finally be free from my dad's controlling grasp. I literally can't do anything without his permission; it's suffocating me.

And the one person who could help me feel better, who could help me pull my life together, who could make me feel as if there's still some good reason for living beyond just getting good grades and going to college and getting a job and blah blah blah - the one person who could make all this mean something to me doesn't care.

Torn Between Risk and Safety

So here's how it is: either I risk it all - his friendship and my current circle of friends - on the slim chance that he might like me back, or I play it safe and remain silent.

But god, it's so hard when people are always asking me, "Are you going out with him?" and I'm forced to hold back the despairing sigh and reply "No, we're just friends."

It's so hard when the more intuitive of those people say, "But you wish you were" and I'm forced to either tell the truth and nod, or lie to their face - and to myself.

And god, it freaking sucks when that person then says "You know, I always seem to be the matchmaking fairy godmother. Okay, here's what you do..." and gives me some advice. And why does it suck? Because even though their advice is absolutely wonderful, even though it's completely perfect, it's flawed in one major way: I'm not bold enough to do half of what they say. People always tell me, "Well, just tell him" - can't, I'm a wimp and I don't want to ruin our friendship. They say, "Okay then, see if he'll see a movie/study/go shopping/etc. with you" - again, I can't, because again, I'm a wimp, and I doubt he'd want to do anything with me anyways. Usually their third bit of advice either involves them telling him for me, or some complex and completely unrealistic situation in which he somehow miraculously realizes he loves me to, and blah blah blah - basically your standard Disney story.

One of the only really practical bits of advice I've heard was something a friend brought up yesterday - or rather, two ideas she had.

1 - "Well, see if he'll go to the Winter Ball with you and some of your friends." My only complaint against this is that I'd have to ask, and I'd inevitably screw it up somehow, and my only real argument against it is that most of my friends already have boyfriends...so it would be kind of awkward.

2 - "OH! He should go see Twilight with us!" Again, I'm not about to ask; last time we talked about it, he seemed really reluctant, so I doubt he'd want to go with my friend and I. Unfortunately...

So I'm going to go on being a wimp and saying nothing, playing it safe, even though he keeps telling me that the greatest risk brings the greatest reward (yeah, he actually said that today, although it was about offering my opinion on a history worksheet we were doing), and looking for the for dummies book on love and relationships.

Lost, Confused...

I don't know what to do. How I feel...it's not just a crush, not just a 'like' - it's more than that. It's gotten to the point where I can physically feel my heart leap when he comes into my sight, even if he doesn't say anything, where just hearing his voice makes me feel calm. It's gotten to the point where it hurts to think that something I did might have hurt him, or made him think less of me - and it makes me so happy, almost unbearably happy, to hear him compliment me.

I don't know how much longer I can do this, pretending to feel only friendship, when to call my feelings only friendship would be such an understatement. I don't know how much longer I can handle this, when my heart stutters every time our shoulders accidentally brush. I don't know how much longer I can live like this, when whenever he stands close enough to me for me to be able to feel his warmth, my heart stumbles then races, when his mere presence is a balm to my pain.

And every time he looks at me with that calculating look in his eyes, asking questions and trying to get me to tell him why there's a difference between how I act towards Daniel and how I act towards him, to tell him what it was I told him before that he's forgotten - every time, I long so much to just tell him, to repeat those words I emailed to him two Aprils ago. I want to say something, but I know if I do things will inevitably become awkward again, and this time - this time, I don't know if we'd get past it again.

Last time, he relaxed once I started going out with Brian, because he believed that my feelings for him had become only friendship. And for a long time, I tried to convince myself of that - but I couldn't. Even as I professed my love for Brian, a part of my heart laughed at my lies. I elevated mere friendship to something more in my attempt to forget my feelings for him, but in the end it wasn't enough - because I still...

I still love him.

Dream

There's only one real point to this post, and that's to document this amazing dream I had last night. Just a warning.

It was simple, really - nothing completely abnormal or impossible, just two people on Earth. There was me, and there was a guy - a guy who sometimes wore glasses, sometimes didn't, who sometimes was the most annoying person ever, yet sometimes was the nicest friend, who sometimes seemed cold and heartless, yet sometimes was the softest shoulder to cry on. The dream itself didn't really have a "plot line", to be honest; it was just a few scenes, a few short scenes, that really left an imprint on my memory: our hands would brush, and he would slip his fingers around mine; I would show him something on a calculator, and he would come up behind me to see it, resting his warm hands on my shoulders; I would yawn tiredly, and he would slip his arm around my waist and let me rest my head on his shoulder; he would smile and laugh, and I would have the strongest urge to hug him; he would say goodnight and walk away slowly, and I would wish I had the self-confidence to go after him and give him a hug, a kiss on the cheek perhaps, and whisper goodnight in return.

Simple images, the sort of images one might see on a day to day basis just walking around the campus at school.

And yet, when I woke up this morning, my alarm clock blaring its siren-like wailing, my cheeks were wet with tears at the thought that, as simple as those images were, they would never become reality.

A New Beginning of Sorts

Well, here I go again. The past few days have been a bit enlightening for me (I'll explain in a moment) and they've helped me realize - no, remember - to take a step back and not get too emotionally involved in the world around me. You see, I'm a really emotional person; the slightest thing makes me cry, and sometimes I get the irresistible urge to just blow up, to scream and shout and throw things and just let it all out. And because I'm so emotional, I tend to get too involved in day to day life and forget that there's more to life than just high school.

As for what caused this enlightenment, there are a few reasons - but one stands out above them all, as much for its effect as for its simplicity. Yesterday after school, I had to walk to the county library so I could tutor some people, and a friend was heading there as well so he offered to walk with me.

What we said, what we did, that doesn't matter so much; what sticks in my mind is how I felt. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, how I felt during those ten or twenty minutes is something I haven't felt in a while. For once, I felt...at peace. Or rather, not at peace, just...I wasn't freaking out about a test, or the tons of homework I had, or how it felt like my life was falling apart. I was just existing, just living and taking life as it came, laughing at his jokes and making a few of my own, chatting about how so-and-so was, how such-and-such a teacher was horrible, just...talking. And it felt good.

I tried explaining this to a friend, but I don't think she understood; maybe this sort of experience is the sort of thing that only a few people really have. So now, sitting at my computer and stressing over the tons of homework I have due tomorrow, I close my eyes and think back to those few minutes, when life was simple and straightforward, when love and hate meant nothing, when all that mattered was that we were alive and could still make bad jokes.

So, although I think I've said this before, I'm going to try just restarting my life and remembering that day. I'll take it as it comes, freak out with friends when we have a test in five minutes, laugh with friends when something good happens, cry with friends when things go wrong, and never let my emotions get tied to my life.