debbie gibson, eat your heart out

I had this dream last night. A lot of things happened in it, most I can't remember. Running through a dream version of New York City with my grandparents, parents, and cousins, shaving my head, running from something I can't remember.

And then there was Janna.

In the dream Janna comes over after almost a year of us not having seen each other, and we sit at my kitchen table and we're...making something, I think. Like an arts and crafts project. And we're having fun and laughing and she's saying how glad she is that we're friends again. But on the inside, in the dream, I can't stand any of it, because I can see myself getting trapped into a relationship with her again, just like I had been for the past seven years.

Janna and I became friends in second grade until last year when she got shipped off to boarding school when her parents caught her doing something they didn't agree with and thought she was going to end up getting pregnant (something to that effect, I don't really know the details) and for about a year before this happened I felt myself steadily growing to hate her and everything she did. Every time we got together I felt her...judging me. Tearing me down. And she'd tell me about doing all this crap like getting messed up on cough syrup and partying and skipping class and just all these things that I didn't agree with. And didn't believe. It was to the point where I dreaded her calls and never wanted to hang out with her. And leading up to her leaving I remember my mom and I sitting in the car arguing about why I never wanted to see Janna anymore. The answer was something I wasn't comfortable saying out loud. How do you tell someone you hate your best friend?

Looking back on it now, her getting sent to boarding school was perfect timing. I haven't spoken to her since and I'm glad.

I guess, in my own rights, I was just as bad as she was. I lied to her, about the things I did. Just because. I knew that if I told her I didn't do those things the worst that could happen was that she would think I was boring. I knew she wouldn't stop being my friend. We were each others' security blankets, to an extent. I would lie to her...to defy her. As a silent "fuck you". I didn't want her to know anything about my life, just as much as I didn't want to know anything about hers. I felt I was justified, in some weird sense. Because somewhere along the line we'd stopped being friends and just started being there.

The dream was one of those real ones, where everything seems plausible and everything is felt. On the outside I was laughing but even though I was genuinely having a good time with her I hated it all so fucking much. I didn't want to be her friend. I don't want to be her friend again. The thought that she could just walk right back into my life and just...I hate it.

Dreams are your mind's way of trying to solve whatever's going on inside of it. You dream every night, whether you remember it or not. I don't really understand what my brain's trying to deal with here...maybe fear that she might come back. A few days ago I deleted her mother's phone number from my home phone. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I can't put myself through that again. It will destroy me if I let it.