DREAMS

I was at home, and as is so often the case in 'home' dreams, was concerned about 'catchng the bus to school'. (For me, many performance anxiety dreams take this form, as I went to a regional high school, and to catch the bus in order to get to the school, the next town over was crucial.) Due to this theme, I 'assume' I'm in high schol during said dreams.

In this one I was scurrying in and out of my childhood home, aware that if I didn't hustle, I risked missing the bus. And...as I popped out of the house one more time, saw the familiar flash of the yellow schoolbus, lumbering on up the road. Normally, an occasion for despair (I considered chasing it, as once I was able to catch it at the next house up) ...except, that this time, there were multiple buses going up our road. I gathered near the road's edge with other people/kids, and proceeded to flag down one of the other buses passing by. A couple refused to pick us up, but another eventually stopped for us, I got thankfully on, and sat in one of the front seats, next to some kid. Turned out he wasn't 'human', but it wasn't an issue, nor the problem you might assume it'd be. Was just a fact... 'Oh, not human.' I think I was too damned happy to be getting a ride to school after all that I didn't care. ^_^

Ruminations immediately upon awakening

That whole 'ride to school' dream theme sparked a rememberance in me once I awoke. One of the ex-friends for whom I reserved a hearty fuck you! in that rant from last week (more than a quarter century after the fact) was D. , who dumped me as we both entered junior high, in that very same regional school. I remember we used to sit together on the bus in grade and middle school; she lived further up the rural road I lived on, and us being seatmates was one part of the familiar comfort of our friendship (which had lasted since 2nd grade). Now in 6th grade, my father's schedule had him able to give me a ride to my middle school, and for some weeks of that year, that was how I got to school. A couple of times after the split, I wondered briefly if my absence on the school bus was seen as some sort of abandonment by D...and my mind turned back to that speculation this morning. (Yeah, I know...living in the past again and all, but if I'm to consider it important to look at how we all contribute to our own situations, I have to consider that my not taking the bus might have pissed her off. And if so, obviously more than I ever realized.) And/or...left to her own ends, she might have bonded with other girls on the bus...and ultimately, found that she had 'more in common' with them.

Which isn't to say that it was 'my fault' (for part of the split was almost certainly about me not yet being interested in serious boy chasing...while she already was)...or that I have no right to say fuck you!... but it may be that there were logical events leading up to what at the time seemed a sudden blow out of left field. And for the longest time, I haven't been able to 'see' any of what might have contributed to that happening.

(You ever want to go back and talk to your past friends and tormentors, and simply ask them straight out, 'Why'd you do it?' and part of you thinks, 'Boy would that be a stupid thing to do...' but the other part wonders if you might not just get that answer...once and for all? Even if it was, 'I don't know.')

I don't recall any disagreements or rows happening, say, the summer before our 7th grade year...though there might have been. If there were...I don't remember.

I could ask her...but I didn't speak to her after that. I mean, we went from 'best friends' (though was that only in my own mind?) to no further contact. Zip. Zero.

Now she's an approaching middle-age housefrau, completely followed in her mother's footsteps, in some town near where we grew up. I doubt she'd even remember quite why I became so manifestly unsuitable to be a friend. Unless she does...and it was something I refuse to remember. Now wouldn't that be interesting...?

But nah, was probably just having grown apart, and she suddenly saw the writing writ large on the proverbial wall...and just dumped me.