Peace with Annie

Last nigth I dreamt that my ex-boyfriend's wife and I made peace.

Not that we are in a war now. However, quick background is that he and I had met and dated in college, and for the immediate years out of college; about six years total. I had tried to break up with him a hundred times. He just kept telling me I needed to try harder. Finally, after six years of trying harder just to want to stay with him, I decided that I had tried hard enough. I moved out of state and across the country. He came out to visit and proposed. I said no. I never heard from him again.

Until he wrote me two years later to let me know that he had married. And that he just wanted to see how I was doing. Other drama ensued, but let's summize this to say that what he really needed was to say goodbye to me. So we said goodbye. End of story.

Last night I dreamt I was in my small Wisconsin hometown - visually, it was my home town. But we called it Milwaukee.

Summerfest was going on. I was in a hotel in this part of town, I guess to me it's kind of a void part of town, it's the highest point in the city, and that's generally where the fancy people choose to put their houses. At one point in the city's history, they did. And then for some reason, that part of town just never took off. I never understood it, even as a kid, that area of the city always seemed like it could be so much more. Could be worth more, developed more. But no. It's these fancy houses mingled in with lower income builds.

So I'm at this hotel, but I look down the hill and can see the lights from Summerfest in the near distance. I think, oh, it would be fun to be down there. I am at a party at this hotel, and they have a TV screen showing the different concerts playing around the grounds. One of the concerts playing is Pearl Jam. I laugh to myself and think, oh, i wonder if my ex is there.

Sure enough, the camera scans the crowd, and he's right down in front, his hair fashioned very 1980's glam punk. He's wearing a flannel, which was more accurate for Pearl Jam's time, but over it he has on a studded leather jacket and frosted jeans and combat boots. Very punk. He appears to be alone at the concert, but having a great time.

Somehow I am instantly at this house that, in the dream, he and his friends had lived in just out of college. There was a house in Milwaukee where they had lived, it was not the house in the dream, but in the dream, this was the place; a skinny old three story victorian home where an auto parts store currently is. Another mystery to me - I never understood how that shop stayed in business. Nobody ever went there. But it did, for years and years. In the dream, this business was replaced by his house. I registered that change in the dream as well.

So I'm now standing on a balcony of this house, on the southeast side of the house, which in the dream faces the Summerfest Grounds. The house seems to be vacant, but owned, like maybe he still owns it but simply isn't living there currently.

His wife is standing in the living room when I come downstairs. Neither of us are surprised to see the other; nor are either of us upset that the other is there. It's like she knows I have access to the house and I have a right to it, that I don't use it often, but that I sometimes do.

She and I sit in the living room and chat for a moment. In real life, his wife is blond haired, blue eyed, and very round; round face, soft round body. In the dream, she was this girl I worked on a kitchen with in my day job; brown hair, dark green eyes, tall and atheletically built. Could be my mirror image, actually, although in the dream she was much taller than me.

She and I get chatting. I'm telling her stories of when we all lived there out of college. She is enjoying the stories. She's their with their daughter, who looks about six. In real life, they have two sons and no girl.

The daughter plays amiably while her mom and I chat. We walk through the house; she is here looking at it because she is thinking that this would be a nice place for them to raise their family, and she is seeing how much work needs to be done on the house to determine if it's worth the move.

She and I walk, and we are now on a wooded train track, which seems to fun into the living room of this house. She and their daughter and I walk along the track. She's being nice to me, and I seem clueless that she has ulterior motives - as in, she's only being nice because she sees that that is the only way she can get me to understand. I need to let go of the house. For some reason, they cannot move into this house or even sell the house until she has my sign off. Although I am not in his life, and I don't live in this empty house, it seems I still have a stake or hold on it. She needs me to let go of my hold on his property.

We think we hear a train coming, and race back to the living room, where apparently it's safe. She ran and didn't seem to have concern for her daughter; I ended up making sure the daughter was keeping up and not getting left behind.

We get in the living room, and we both sit down on the couch that remains in the room. Late afternoon light filters in through the sheer curtains that remain on the windows. Only, she and I are not sitting on the couch; we are both laying on the couch; her head at one end and mine at the other. We are on our backs, like at a psychologist's couch. Our feet both occupy the middle, our bodies kind of fit in next to each other and we fit quite comfortably.

I am enjoying being this way with her. It feels like the position old girlfriends would sit in and talk and have girl talk. I am so glad she is making peace with me. I felt since I met her that we could probably be good friends if we had met under different circumstances.

We talk for a bit, she is primarily dominating the conversation. She is very polite and very nice. She says she's sorry she has to cut it short, but she has to get back to Minnesota, where they live. She and her daughter leave.

I am left feeling like I just had a chinese dinner - I thought I was full, thought I got nourished, but I now feel totally empty. I stand in the doorway in the living room watching them leave. I realize she was being nice to get rid of me, not to be nice to me. I realize she is not capable of being nice - not just to me, that it's hard for her to be anything other than fake nice to people. I feel forgiveness for her and realize that she and I will never be friends - not because she won't let me be. But because I don't need to be. I think, my psychic was wrong - we could be friends. It's just not my preference. I'm glad I got to spend time with her to learn that.

That's all for today. Thanks.