For as long as I can remember I have had fantasies. Whether sitting in class, on the bus ride home, in the car to the mall, watching tv, or looking out the window I have made scenerios in my mind and let them play out for minutes and occassionally hours at a time. For a long time though, my fantasies weren't anything to fantasize about. Instead of your regular ones about sex or being on a deserted island or whatever happy ones people make up, mine were of pain and mutilation and sometimes death. I would fantasies about being in a fight at school and barely coming out of it alive or of car crashes where I would die and everyone else would walk away unharmed. There was one of having my back slashed over and over with a pocket knife in the hand of a friend and another of suffocation. Of all the ways someone can be hurt, I have probably thought of about half if not more. Though I haven't really had any of these in a couple months until today, but in those months I have fantasized about having heated confrontations with homophobic people.
Today's though, was back to the old kind. When I was walking down the street, listening to a cd of love songs I found myself thinking about being attacked by a rottweiler, my arm nearly being ripped off and the dog having to be killed with an axe to get him off me. It was a gruesome thought like they always were, yet I didn't stop myself from thinking it. I let it go on until I got home and occupied myself with something else that took my mind away from it. I know I don't want what I fantasize in these ones to happen to me, at least today I don't. Back then I probably did, though I'm not entirely sure why. I was depressed but didn't truly want to die. Maybe I was looking for a way to be noticed, to get the attention I was in need of, back then it could have been for any reason I was fantasizing about being hurt instead of being loved. But why today? I haven't talked to Lisa in a few days and only then it was one day after a few missed ones, computer troubles of course. Could the lack of conversation with her be the cause? She gives me love and attention, maybe when that is gone a little bit I subconsciously start to slip back to my old ways. She was in the fantasy as well.
After the attack and an operation to fix the damage we talked online and I told her about what happened and how it had tramatized me, seeing into the dogs eyes as the last chop took its life and his head came free of his body to hang from my damaged arm. Like I said, gruesome. We talked about suiing the owners as it was more their fault than the dogs. They didn't have him leashed and were teasing him as I walked by, causing him to attack me. The doctors said I wasn't to use my arm at all for two months and after that could only use it to lift nothing more than a fork for two more months. Full recovery would be up to a year and my arm may never be completely as it was before. This was my right hand and I am right handed. So in the time of healing I would be unable to write unless I typed with only my left hand which would be a slow process. Too slow to keep up with my mind and the story unfolding within. I would have to resort to dictating into a tape recorder, but wasn't sure if I could because of my self confidence and the disliking of my voice, recorded or otherwise. The lawyers hadn't set a figure to ask for, but it was going to be big and we, me and Lisa, wouldn't have to worry about money issues anymore. We could work on our projects as we wanted and not be distracted by day jobs that were needed to pay the bills and our time together could start immediatly instead of longer down the road...
I think I may understand why I had this fantasy. It's said that dreams mean something and what happens in them are symbols for something else. Just because you dream of drowning doesn't mean you are going to drown, but rather maybe you are in over your head with something, or an issue is weighing you down so much you feel you can't get your breath and you are being overcome by its swiftness. So, though this wasn't a dream I think it means something other than what it was directly about. By being attacked and unable to use my arm for months it could be meant for how I have been feeling my writing has been going lately. As if I am incapable of writing due to something holding me back, maybe beyond my control, and with time I will be able again. The recovery process, find an alternative such as the dictating, or in real life writing in here when I can't write stories, the eventual ability to start slow again such as using the fork, or in real life writing something simple like a short story instead of jumping right into novels or screenplays, and the final healing but not complete perfection, or in real life writing a rough screenplay but not focussing on how to make it perfect in the first draft, time will help to make it better. As for suiing the owners and coming away with enough money that we don't have to worry could be for our need to find the money to be together and to do all that we want to do. Money doesn't mean much to either of us, but when you have none and need at least some to get by and to be together then money stays on the mind as does the stress and longing to be able to make some.
I'm not worried that my fantasy today means that I am falling back into how I was before. I know that I'm not. I'm not depressed other than the rare day which doesn't usually last long. I don't dislike my life, in fact it is close to being just how I have always wanted it. And though I haven't talked to Lisa in a little while, I know I will again soon and in the empty time I know we still have our love and it is as strong as always. Today's fantasy, even if not a symbol as I made it to be, is nothing to worry myself over, though the gruesomness of it is rather appalling to think I let myself go that far, but it's long over and now I just write it in here to completely end it.
On a totally different topic, to anyone who has signed my guestbook - whether they see this or not - thank you for your words, they are really touching and inspire me to keep my site going knowing how you feel. I really appreciate it. |
