I had a dream...

Last night was all sorts of crazy. It was about death, in three parts.

Part 1
I'm on the river rafting with my first girlfriend. I didn't really want to be there, but it seemed like such a great day for rafting that I might as well enjoy it. We rafted down the wide, winding river lazily; we soaked in the sun and the sights. But before we knew it, the river picked up speed and we started to collide with other deserted rafts. I should mention that when I say "raft" I don't mean an inflatable dingy, but a traditional planks-and-logs kind of thing. I was sure I could navigate us through, but my ex was worried and sceptical. What's really strange is that we came out to a labyrinth of aqueducts and waterways. The raft became a hover-raft (don't ask 'cause I don't know) and I simply flew over the whole system toward the lake on the other side. My ex insists that we're skipping over the best part, so I land it in the waterways. Turns out they're part of the zoo/amusement part and are those water-type rollercoasters. Our raft gets picked up on the unreasonably fast conveyor and brings us up to the top. We whip around a corner and are plummeted down towards the waterways again. I'll admit, while there was an element of fun, there was also the absolute terror in the fact that we were not attached. The raft was not designed for this track. We were taken up another ramp, but we hadn't lost much momentum. We round the corner at the top and, with nothing to hold onto, I am cast off the edge. From a wide angle shot from the shore I see my body fall seventy feet towards the water with speed and grace like I fell out of the back of a pickup truck. Just before contact, I wake up.

Part 2
I went back to sleep A) to see if I could resume and save myself (with the brilliant plan of pulling myself into a dive and cutting through the water like a dolphin in a show. I did not. The ending was cut from when I last woke up. But soon after, I start a new story.
It's me and the love of my life. It's the holidays and her parents (who are actually another girl's parents, I just know and like them better) are having their friends over constantly. I suggest to the girl that we get away from it all and hide away in my treehouse, which is literally a modern cabin built in a tree. Before I know it, there are two men at the door (of my treehouse). The girl opens the door. They don't say a word. They shoot her and walk quickly through the house. I duck out a side door and and call the secret service (again, don't ask. I just know them, I guess). I scream and panic and threaten the men.

Part 3
My sister's boyfriend (the love of her life) who lives across the street from the treehouse came to investigate. He opens the door and before he gets a chance to even speak, the men kill him too. I could try and stop them, but I've already died in my dreams once today. I would barely step in the room before I was shot dead too. Though, given the rest of the dream, it may have been better to have died.

Epilogue
I return to the parents' house. It all happened a minute ago to me, and is years ago for them. The same holiday party. The same people. The livelihood is superficial, but they're trying. I remember a line to a song:
"Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind to follow you into the dark."
I've almost got myself convinced to kill myself, but I knew she wouldn't want that. If she was waiting there for me, she'd wait for me until my time came. But she wasn't waiting. There was no sense dying. No real sense in living other than you can't change your mind about it later. So there I was, the world around my moving while my life had ground to a stop under the burden of a lost love and the guilt of the loss of another's love. I don't know what I could have done to stop him from being killed, but I feel like I could have done something.

-

I'm on that old raft again, drifting down the river. The world lacks even the indication of colour. I look at the shore and there is her mother driving her car on the road along the bank. She looks at me and I stare at her. She's drained, somewhat emptied, but hopeful at the same time. She is who the girl would have been. She is who the girl will never be. She is the woman I will never know.

Balls.

In a word, Fuck.

In a longer word, FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCKKKK!!

I can't not think about things. It's all fine and dandy to "let things happen," but I just can never not think about what could happen. And then I'm left disappointed when it doesn't. I need a time machine to go back to art school when I was in my first year and do it all differently. I think I wasted my early years worrying about how not to waste them instead of wasting them having fun. Now it seems like I'm too old to have fun. Not that 23 is old, but in the surroundings of almost entirely 18 year olds, I'm ancient.

I guess I have to play catch up on life. Finish school, get a job, and be the same kind of miserable everyone else is. Maybe then I can change it from the inside.

Maturation

I must be getting old.

Remember back in the day when you were a teenager and the most important part of a sexy dream is that you totally boned someone? Sort of like how the most important part of a sex scene in a movie was the fact that you saw boobies. But as we grow older we refine our tastes and understand that sometimes less is more. Sometimes an implication is better than a statement (or visual statement, as the case may be). We even come to realize that not getting what we want is often more enjoyable than getting it right away. We no longer have a need for the gratuitousness of sex (on a side note, why is the word "gratuity" used for tips? Shouldn't it be gratituity? I henceforth will object to paying gratuities on the basis that it is completely unnecessary).

I'm not going to go into details about this dream I had. Though I'm sure it is inferred that is was a particularly good dream, I assure you that you assume too much. It was good in the sense that a cup of tea is good compared to the goodness of a Dirty German (French Toasted Cheese and Bacon Pancake Sandwich grilled in Maple Syrup. Don't ask why it's a called that, I don't remember). Again, it wasn't gratuitous.

Some might say that it is boring or sad to have the realism of a dream be not in the vividness of boundless experience but rather in the modesty of situation. While some people have dreams about flying or superpowers or whatnot, I have dreams about attending lectures, volunteering to speak at a seminar, and all my real relationships being exactly the way they are in real life. But in the end, there is always something to be learned, something to be taken away and even shared here on the internet with the people who are even just curious about what I have to say.

From this dream I have learned this: It feels better to be wanted than to be had.

Maybe you can apply this to your lives. I know, much to my chagrin, that I can.

Getting older

I never really understood how people could be unable to say the things they want to say to someone they're comfortable with even though the simple logic of it is that you say what you mean to that person because you care about them, you respect them, and if you don't say anything how will they know? But it's days like this that make me feel like Humphrey Bogart, only not in an awesome way. More like a sissy Humphrey Bogart.

Bogie could say "I miss you." I can't.

Life's Too Long or Do Venetians Dream Of Idaho?

A lot of people claim that life is too short to not do things. Ten Places You Have To See Before You Die. Fifteen Things You Have To Do Before You Die. Thirty-Seven Flavours To Taste Before You Die. Eight Types Of Yoga To Eternal Peace (That You Have To Do Before You Die).
Okay, I understand that the modern world has a lot to offer. But what I don't understand is why you have to do it all. Is your life worth less by not doing all these things? Were 18th century Europeans at a loss for never seeing the tremendous flatness of Saskatchewan? Were 15th century Chinese not living life to their maximum potential by not visiting Tokyo? Were 20th century citizens of the world not living their lives to the maximum potential because they had not circumnavigated the globe? Will people of the 21st century be scoffed at while telling their tales of not going to the moon? Where does it end? Why can't we live where we live and be happy with that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for exploring, but why do you need to see the things that you think you need to see because people tell you that you need to see the things that they've seen? That's not exploring. That's following orders. That's being obligated to "not waste you short life." It's bullshit.

What doubles this bullshit is the idea that a family will restrict your ability to experience this "exploration" which people claim is synonymous to life. Since when did watching the transformation of the cultures and topographies through the window of a tour bus become a greater marvel than nurturing a child of your own blood from infant to self reliant human being? Since when did studying the details in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel become more spectacular than watching your own child laugh and live and learn and love. Since when is seeing the Colosseum from a different perspective than the postcards more spectacular than seeing a child's development from the perspective of a mother or father?

My traditional argument is that not having children is selfish. You were a child once. Your parents spent uncountable hours and sums of money raising you. They poured themselves, their hearts and their minds, their very souls into you, and you refuse to pay it forward? How can you refuse to love a child the way that you were loved as a child? But that's not what I'm arguing here.

What I'm arguing is that having children is self-fulfilling and people don't seem to get that. People seem to think that when they're 50, they can still be the spirit of the twenty-something they used to be. They believe that the adventures can never die as long as you don't move beyond your "ideal" age. This Peter Pan notion that we can exist in one state forever is absurd. We change. That is a fact that has been proved by the dozens of photo albums of your past. Go ahead and look. Remember how you used to do your hair? Remember what you used to think was fashionable? Remember your ex? Remember how that seemed like such a good idea?

Yeah, but I'm older now. It's different.

It's not fucking different. You will grow older. You will change. You will never ever be the same. This is the rule of growth. You grow up, you grow old, you grow out. And life is simply too long to have your game plan be "stay 27 forever." You will see the world and you will perform Dhalsimian yoga. You will have a million stories that fall upon deaf ears because your middle aged friends are more concerned about their child's first end-of-year dance and your middle aged friends that pretend they'll be 27 forever are off experiencing the unique flavours of Turkmenistan. Maybe that's the life for you. I'll never understand how someone could be so excited about seeing new things, but never venture into experiencing a crucial aspect of life that is entirely foreign until you commit to it. I think people that feel they need to see the world are as much afraid to take the step from life to death as they are to take the step from child to parent.

It's time to come to terms with life.

Destruction, Role Reversals, and Choices

These are actually examples of things that aren't wrong with the world. These are the things that make life difficult, but ultimately worth living be it for creation of life, appreciation of life, or simply being life.

Part 1

I drove down to Lethbridge this weekend; about a two hour drive. The weather warnings were extreme in the morning, but had diminished by the time I left. None the less, I found cars spun out in the ditch, one car on its roof with an exit trail probably a full 30° from the road (in case you don't think in trajectories, that means it was going over 50% as fast sideways as it was going forward along the road, or exactly 50% of its speed [no vector {direction}] was in a vector perpendicular to the road. tl;dr it went sideways fast), and finally, the worst of them all, I saw a horse trailer on its side. Firetrucks, ambulances, police cruisers, all sorts of emergency crews... two lanes of traffic were forced around onto the shoulder to sneak by directed by no less than 4 traffic coordinators. I couldn't even bear to confirm my suspicions.

But I thought to myself what a terrible thing that man has done. We cage an animal and, due to weather it would otherwise survive, we kill it. Cows, pigs, sheep, chickens... they all die for me to eat and probably eat better than I rightfully should (for I have not cared for nor have I bested these animals). And I suppose logically a horse is no different. It's life should hold no extra value to us than the lives of such a multitude of similar animals. But somehow it stands for something. Horses represent freedom, hopes, dreams, pride and other things that are hard to draw. And we have killed it.

I begin to wonder if I am man and life is nature. Man seeks to control nature. Nature cannot be controlled. And sometimes they collide and horses, dreams, can be killed. Life is happening. Can I control it? Could I not even if I wanted to?

I drive into Lethbridge. Too many cars in front of the house to park. I park down the street. The frozen body of a rabbit lies belly up in the gutter ahead.

She used to point out rabbits in the hills. Now here it is in front of me. Adorable. Dead.

Perhaps another metaphor; stronger than the first. Closer to her, not me. That's what it's about after all.

Part 2

The night plays out; a hilarious mix of people new and old coming and going. Life is happening here. This isn't what I came for, but it's more fun than I thought. This isn't why we come; not the real reason.

And there's the revelation. "We."

I don't know what I thought of girls before they held my affection. I probably saw them as people, only more different people than us boys. But soon they started to stick out. There was always a girl. There was always one that I thought was more than the rest of them. And I built up that philosophy for years. The One. Every girl is special, and, in my case, every new girl must be the One.

I've finally came to realize that in my experience, girls are all the same, just like they say. I was the one who was different. I was the one who cared when no other guy did. I was the guy who brought flowers and went shopping and looked at jewelry and told her that she was beautiful all the time. I was the one who wanted to have kids and simultaneously wanted to do whatever he had to to financially provide for his family (which I wanted while we was still young) and wanted to stay home with the kids so she could pursue her career. I was the one who said, "I'm sorry," when I was wrong. I'm the one who said, "I love you," every chance I could. She told me I was the most amazing guy she had ever met and that we were forever.

I realize that there are some things you just say, sometimes for no other reason than that it sounds nice. But it can't all be bullshit. There must have been something special about me. I stood out. This is exactly doubled by the fact that I have never asked a girl out on a date in my life...oh, wait, no, yes, I did once. I got a "no." However, that being said, there is a far greater number of girls who have made the moves on me. So there has to be something. And it certainly isn't my face, my body, my brains, my wit, or my charm. It's just something.

Then there's this girl. She's got it, too. All girls are the same... except her. She is undoubtedly unlike any girl I have ever known or ever will again. And suddenly I'm just another boy falling at her feet. And it's strange being on the other side of that scenario.

Perhaps I broke my role first. Maybe it's part of the new me. Is that new me really the me I want to be?

Part 1, Side 2

I drive back home the next day.

I left her different this time. No difficult screen doors to open. The wind was colder than usual. I drive away regretting it.

Broken fences, broken rails, broken signs. This weather did a number on things. The sign that told me to exit is half over. Do I look for signs not to exit, or does this mean that the signs will be gone, but the choice still must be made? More questions for later.

The fences are made by man. Some fences are broken by men; others are broken by nature itself. What are these fences? Do they separate us from being together, or do they keep us from being exposed? Man will rebuild these fences. Should I? Nature brought them down.

A train derailed. Me. Another moves backwards. Me, again. Are these the choices of who I can be? I saw no other trains. Perhaps they are simply beyond what I can see.

Part 3

Who am I? Who do I choose to become? Do I remain extraordinary among girls whom are all the same, or do I become ordinary chasing after the one girl like no other?

I am derailed; another version of me. Do I drive backwards? Pick up from a time once passed? Am I then doomed to tread the same ground only to end up in the same place again, and later, the place where I cannot see? Do I press on to the unforeseeable future?

What do these fences, these barriers, mean? What do they mean to me? What do they mean to her? Do I build them up, or watch them burn?

Maybe they represent an inquantitative distance. I seem to hear my own advice.

Leave. Don't come back until the feelings go away. The girls hate it, but it's the only way.

Hope is a funny thing. Sometimes hopelessness can make you feel better.

Did hope die this weekend? I don't know. I couldn't bring myself to look.