Dream of Me

November 10

Instead of a creature emerging from the lake, the entire deposit of water took form, rising from the lake bed in a shape I cannot describe in enough detail to be understood. It was something from a horror movie, a being that took an almost human form, but gigantic. Put together with nothing but the water itself, the form rose in front of us. I understood the panic on the faces of the people we thought we had rescued in a new way. In reality, we hadn't rescued them, we'd merely stepped into the same trap that they had however many days or years ago. A future of eternal drowning lay before me in that instance, and still I was unable to move from that same spot. I simply looked up at the water fiend, awaiting my future.

Chapter 7

I'm an engineering student at UBC. I'm currently in my last year. I'm dying. You know when you wake up and you're already tired? And the things that you used to enjoy are now only another thing to do on your vast list? You find any excuse to do anything else but what you're supposed to be doing. That's how I've been writing this. As a distraction. And as a collection of thoughts and history and eventually what's been happening lately in my life, but mostly as a mechanism of procrastination.

Anyway, Irene and I dated for about 2 years. We broke up after graduation because she decided to go to the University of Toronto to major in English and I chose to stay in Vancouver. We talked about trying out long distance, but in the long run it seemed best to separate before we started hating each other from thousands of miles away. We continued to hang out for the entire summer, just not as a couple. We still behaved as one, but it was easier to just avoid the topic completely. On the night before she was leaving for the airport, I helped her pack and we held each other on her bed until she had to leave. We both cried and promised to keep in touch, but that only lasted for the first 5 months that we were apart. We took turns wanting to get back together, but every time the other would say why it was a bad idea. Eventually, we both got tired of talking to each other as something outside of a partner and even outside of a friend. Sometimes we message each other to see how things are going, but it doesn't go further than that.

But that was 4 years ago. I've gone on dates with a few girls while in university, but no one really stuck like she did. Addison is 14 now. I live on my own, well, I have a roommate, but I live mostly alone. Addy and my father still live in the house that I grew up in. I visit them whenever I can take a bit of time from studying and trying to maintain a social life somehow. Addison went on her first date a few weeks ago and refused my insisting to chaperon. The guy was skinny and nerdy and I gave him a good scare before they left. But then I remembered my first dates with Irene and softened up a bit. She's growing up and I have to be okay with that. I just wish that my mother could be there for her like she was there for me so long ago. A brother and a dad don't always understand everything that a teenage girl goes through. She spends a lot of time with my aunt, so at least she has someone to explain to her all of the topics that me and my father try to avoid. I just can't bring myself to discuss the menstrual cycle with my baby sister, even though I know that's pretty cowardly. I don't know what I'd say.

My roommate is some guy I found on Kijiji that goes to UBC as well, but I hardly ever see him and I'm not even going to write down his name because half of the time I don't remember it. He pays half the rent, that's what's important. We have very differing worldviews. Also he's white. Not that there's a problem with that, but he's the kind of white guy that believes that the world consists of only white guys and everyone else is a little bit beneath him. So my roommate is racist. I should probably try to find a new place, but at this point I can't even begin to think of the stress and time that would take. I'm barely staying afloat as it is. I quit the soccer team this year because I just can't keep up with practices and games and homework and trying to maintain my mental wellness. It's tough. Being in college is tough and I don't think anyone really understands why. If you're obsessed with getting straight A's, like I've been ever since starting school at the bottom, then the stress is magnified and every sub-par mark or action is a direct hit to your entire being. I've tried to get rid of the notion that I need to get good grades to be a good person, but it's been a tough journey.

As for the dreams—I still have one every night. Whether I remember it in great detail or not, I can usually peg down what realm the snippets of memory belong to. I have about 5 reoccurring dream worlds. Sometimes the same dreams repeat, sometimes a completely new and random dream comes to me for only one night, sometimes I'm dropped right in the middle of a familiar area but at a different starting point than the last dream left off. My dream log has become very useful, because I can read back and see what was going on in previous lives on previous nights.