i called BT yesterday as i was walking to work. He said, 'oh i had a crazy dream and i wanted to tell you about it but then i realized that's what it means, if we're not together. I can't tell you about my dreams anymore'* Meanwhile, I'm grappling with the collapse of the life i'd envisioned for us together.

[*As far as i'm concerned, this is actually one of the bonuses. I hate hearing about anyone's dreams.]

Last month, visiting my sister, i woke up very early on the first morning and the room was very dark** and i was completely disoriented. No idea where I was. I felt like I was floating in the middle of an ocean, in the middle of space. I had no idea what was around me, or where my body lay in relation to anything around me. It was frightening. It felt like everything was tilting and I clutched the mattress to ground myself against the vertigo and realized, 'oh, i'm on a bed. I'm on a bed floating in nothing'. Then, gradually, my eyes adjusted to the dimness and I realized there was a window, and my feet were facing the window, and my head was near the wall, and I remembered the door to my left, and on the other side of the door was a living room and i was in my sister's apartment in Vancouver.

Later that afternoon as I walked through the park, I realized that sense of complete disorientation was the closest I could come to describing how I felt about ending my 9-year relationship with BT. Every step felt so hard. I tried to focus on the smells of the trees, and the misty northwestern air in my lungs, and the mountains in the distance. I remembered how it felt to wake up in the nothing and slowly see that in the blackness there is actually a slightly lighter square, and it is a window, and there is a wall, which means there is the floor and the door and now feel my head on the pillow and oh, i'm here.

[**although, Vancouver is always so dreary in the winter, maybe it wasn't even that early]

6:36 a.m. - 2018-02-08