Too heavy?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post, thought better of it and took it down. It was only up for about fifteen minutes before I replaced it with something a little less weighty. I figured I’d run it eventually, so here it is:

A lot of other people have been writing about dreams lately. I usually don’t remember my dreams, and when I do, I generally don’t put much stock in them or even find them all that interesting, with two exceptions. There are two people who make occasional separate appearances in my dreams; when they do, they are obviously the subject of the dream and frequently put me into a melancholic funk for hours or even the whole day. Despite this, I am usually happy to have had a visit from them, as it were, since I have seen neither in a very long time and perhaps never will again.

The first is an ex-girlfriend from high school. No, thankfully this isn’t a case of pining for an old flame. She was my first serious girlfriend. Actually, I guess she was my first real girlfriend at all. Anyway, she was bipolar (I think; she was medicated), but I was bitten, so I stuck it out for most of two years. I put a whole hell of a lot of effort into that relationship. I should be sainted for it, actually, considering all I got for my patience was a really depressed person half the time and a really ugly and embarrassing break-up. We were both just immature kids, but the break-up was traumatic, for me at least. I still worry about her. I actually heard (unconfirmed) a couple of years later that she had been diagnosed with lupus. I hope that isn’t true, but either way, she was messed up. I hope she’s doing all right.

The second is my brother, who was killed in a car accident when I was 15. He was just 18 and so I always wonder what sort of person he would have become, having lost his life before it had really even begun. I think the dreams are a result of my never having known him as a person beyond just being my asshole brother. The dreams always take place more or less in the present because he and I are adults and in them we always get along. Of course, this is a far cry from our actual relationship as children and adolescents, but I’ve come to realize that we really had a lot in common and probably would have become friends after settling into who we really are. Unlike my mother, I don’t dwell too much on questions like "I wonder if he would have a family by now?" or even "I wonder what he would’ve done with himself?" I just think it would be cool to take him climbing. He’d have loved it.

Whoa. Sorry for the massive downer. I’ll try to cheer things up the rest of the week. I just thought it’d be neat to try writing as a catharsis.