Dreams

“Ah, hello there! Goooood morning!” I said, cheerily, to the middle-aged man, carrying what looked like a pot of tea, in his pyjamas. He looked back at me, blankly, passively and without emotion. Numb, as if clueless to my identity.

I got the impression he was obliged to pretend he knew me. We walked from the enourmous ship onto the beach, where the sand was too hot to walk on but was deliciously golden. The sea was bluer than normal and, as the waves lapped at the edge, there sat a group of people with a barbeque, effectively trying to cook in the water.

The old man disappeared again, and I tried to find him. I did, and he was similarly off-hand with me, but this time the indifference was unsettling me. Why doesn’t he recognise me? Why isn’t he pleased to see me?

It was all a dream. Disconcertingly, and with great sadness, I was dreaming about my Dad who died some years ago. It was all horribly real, yet inexplicable, in a moment.

Changing times, or masking the pitfalls?

Interesting times lie ahead for me. My recent trials with myself, with my lack of confidence and general "woe is me" have subsided like a flacid penis after sex. I am, therefore, wonderfully flacid (although, converseley, I'm actually very erect too. Freud would have a field day with me).

All is rather sunny in my world, and all of a sudden too. Work could not be going better, and I'm even gaining recognition in the industry and the media (or at least from those who "matter"). It's all going smoothly and I've even started laughing and smiling again, which is a thoroughly welcome turn of events.

 However…

Am I simply masking the pitfalls which I know will occur? "Work do's," which my one and only reader will know of all too well, are on the horizon; burning as bright as a lighthouse, they're calling me, luring me to my death again. I had one the other night actually and, much to everyone's surprise but myself, managed to have another panic attack. Sweat streamed from every pore on my face; I nearly even mopped my brow with a bread roll sitting folornly on the table, which looked stale enough to act like a sponge. Instead I found a tissue, but it was soon sopping wet. I simply couldn't stop the dripping, the bright-red "are you alright?" face. It was really sad, impossibly embarassing and even makes me angry thinking and writing about it now.

They want me there, they like me there, they offer concerned (and even scared) looks when I appear to have put my head inside a gas oven for 20 minutes. Yes, it passed (eventually) but only thanks to copious amounts of alcohol. My life will pass me by unless I sort this out, somehow. But I don't know how, and am not sure I even want to. It's me, after all, and I'm quite used to it now. Changing it would alter me, and I'm not sure I could cope with that.

The thought of going to a party, without even worrying about it, is as alien as the Planet Alien. Very alien, then.

Onwards, possibly upwards. At least I'm level. At least I'm smiling. At least I now have the confidence in the work that I do, and that I'm being recognised. The rest will come: it has to. 

Finally, I must add how much enjoyment I get from writing anonymously. No one knows who I am here, and no one ever will. I only have one reader, whose comments are always far too generous and polite and kind, and I'm not even doing it "for the public". But we're all human, and it's quite comforting and homely to know someone, somewhere, is reading my innermost thoughts, most of which stay confined to my throbbing skull. I spoke about flaccid penises in my opening paragraph, and the word "throbbing" in my last; Freud really would love to disect my thoughts…