Come To Me In My Dreams

Have you ever met someone and instantly you realize there is something more there? I don't mean like you want to jump in the sheets with them. I don't mean you feel like you want to marry them. I don't mean love at first sight. I mean something deeper. Something beyond this life. Maybe you have known them before in another life? I have had that feeling only once. I met him on the fly-we'll call him John.

I had a friend living in his neighborhood-we'll call him Alan. I was at Alan's house for the weekend actually. Alan was dating a friend of mine-we'll call her Marie. We went to the beach that weekend. We drank too much, passed out on the beach, and I sunburned the shit out of myself. Apparently, when we got back it was imperative that Alan do laundry. So he and Marie went to the laundry facility in the neighborhood. I was left in charge of Alan's place. It was my job-hung over and sunburned-to make sure no one broke anything or puked on the sofa. After about 2 hours I paged Marie and asked her where the hell they were. She told me they met some guy doing laundry, he was cool and I ought to come over to his place. So I kicked everyone out of Alan's place, locked up and lugged myself to the other side of the neighborhood. I knocked on the door and Marie answered, said come on in, and she turned and walked down a hallway. There was no furniture in this place. I walked into an empty apartment. No chairs. No TV, nothing. Just a bedroom jam packed with stuff. I was standing in this room talking to Marie and Alan, when John walked in. I had my back to him. He walked around my left side and introduced himself. It was an awkward introduction. I was rude, and he almost seemed to expect it. We all hung out in John’s room for a while, smoked a lot of pot and then Alan and Marie said they were going back to his place. I gave Alan his key and said I would catch up with them later.

John and I sat there in his room, he on the bed, I on the chair next to the bed, about a foot apart for what seems now like hours upon hours just smoking bowls and talking. We talked about everything under the sun. We had a crazy connection. We loved the same music. We hated the same type of people. We thought the same things at the same time. We laughed at the same time. It seems simple. It seems normal. It was nowhere near that.

Looking into each other's eyes, it was like we had always known those eyes. We had just met in this life, we were not strangers. We had picked up where at some point in time were we had left off. In the yellow glow of his bedroom light, I met John for the first time in this life, who knows how many times before we have met. I still remember the blue of his eyes and how strange everything felt. How eerily familiar he was. I had never seen this man before. I had never known this man before, but I did know him. There were no conversations about expectations or fantasies. We just went with it. Alone in his apartment. I felt no fear. We talked openly and freely. We sat very close to one another, close enough to get lost in the energy surrounding us.

After a while, Marie came banging on the door. John answered the door and she was in tears. She and Alan had some dramatic falling out. Big news there. It was constant with them. Something like he wasn't going to be spending the next day with her, I think it was Easter. She was a terrible wreck. So I left with her, and on the way out I told John I would be back later. After changing hats and playing the concerned friend, I ended back up at John's place that night-as did Marie and Alan (after a hot and heavy makeup session). We played some drinking game on the floor in the near dark of his apartment. And the next day John and I spent the day once again sitting around, talking and smoking pot.

Maybe it was the pot. Maybe it was the hangover. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe I was bored. I don't know what it was, but that night was one I will never forget. Nor will I ever forget all the weekends that followed.

At some point early on, I realized that things were starting down that fateful path. I knew those words were coming. I told John adamently one night, in the dark of his kitchen, he was never to roll over and tell me he loved me. He seemed puzzled by this. Maybe he wasn't expecting a woman to be so callous about love. After all that's what most of us want, right? Well, I was not in a place to hear those words. Life had taken a strange turn that year and I told him I just couldn't handle it. I was trying to be as honest as I could. I had heard those words many times before and it never led to the right things. How does that song go?  'I never wanted to be your weekend lover; I just wanted to be some kind of friend.'  He said it only once.

Still, we got together, got our supplies for the weekend and locked ourselves in his apartment. On occasion Marie would come by to use the phone (at this time, she was seeing Alan and working on another flame, so she needed to get away to make a call). She would barge in unannounced at any given moment. She caught us at the strangest moments. Sometimes we were just sitting around drinking and laughing. One night she came in and we were lying on the living room floor with a roaring fire going-in the middle of May, and we were only partially clothed. More often than not, she walked in and we were deeply engulfed in a buzz and halfway to the bedroom. Very rarely were the lights on. She was sure we had lost our minds. And in a way we had. We lost our minds in each other.

We sat together in the entrance to his tiny kitchen hot and sweating with our legs and feet intertwined, literally inches from each other, just talking and laughing. We were rolling that night. We took off our clothes and lay in the middle of the floor, in the dark, with just the light from his bedroom shining in the distance. We listed to Natalie Imbruglia-I had never liked her until that night. “Think of all the bubbles of love we made,” she sang. It was us. We drank champagne and talked about our dreams. Our faces hurt from laughing, smiling, and kissing. Yeah the E helped that, but that was us anyway.

He told me once that I literally walked into his life at just the right moment in time. He had reached a place of utter depression and loneliness. He had thought about moving back to Philadelphia, but really just didn't want to. He thought about moving to be closer to his dad, but that didn’t feel right. He needed something and there I was. “You saved me,” he said to me once. I didn’t do anything. We just happened to meet on the fly. But we both needed something at that moment. We had so much fun together. We laughed so much. Yeah we fought too, but we always made up. We had nasty word wars, and we were together again. We could both dish it, and both preferred to be the one dishing it rather than taking it. Guess that doesn’t always make a good match.

Alan and Marie broke up. John's roommate got a place of his own. And then it was just us. We stayed up all night and went skinny dipping in his neighborhood pool. We slept on the floor in the living room for no particular reason. We sat in the dark and talked about what we wanted to do with ourselves 'when we grew up.' He took me to meet his father, step-mother and sister. His mom, a woman he adored, came to visit around Christmas time and he brought me to meet her too. He loved his family very much.

He had a necklace he wore all the time; I had never seen him without it. In a wrestling match one night, I managed to get it off him. Two weeks later we were at the mall one day and we walked by a little kiosk where he found one just like his, but smaller links and he bought it for me. I asked him what he was doing when he was buying it, told him he had one just like it. He said, “Yes I do have one just like it, and I want it back!" Part of the appeal was that it was his. It was big and clunky and thick. I loved it not because it was pretty, but because it was his. I used to play with it all the time and think about what he was doing.

We listened to music. We got ‘fucked up as hell!’ We melted candles. Drew on empty cheap champagne bottles. We would lie on the floor and talk about our days, what we loved, what we hated, what we wanted. We talked. A lot. We had crazy sex. We had crazy fights. We kissed. We made up. We fought some more. We got all wrapped up in each other and blew it all away.

After eight long and crazy intense months of soulful connections, love, fights, sex and drugs, we said goodbye. He moved away. We sat on his bed that day, and talked about what he was going to do. How we would miss each other. Why he was leaving. He told me that day, as he held me in his arms, that he loved me. He said it only once. I told him I loved him too. After all that we went through, all the nights, the fights, the make ups, we finally said those fateful words. John said he wanted, needed me to come with him. But I had a life here; I couldn't just leave it behind. And he moved away. He called me once after he moved and asked me to come down to Tampa. I once again said I couldn't. I may have wanted to, but I just couldn't pack up and leave my life. I had a job, obligations. I should have. I should have said to hell with this shit, I'm out of here. I should have let him take me on that cruise for New Year's. I should have let him fly me to Tampa and given it a whirl. But I just couldn't leave my life.

We would get together and get trashed. Just John and me. No one else. Well not usually. Every now and then someone else would come by, but usually John and I would end up in his room by ourselves. Our friends would be left wondering I guess, what happened to us. There was no room for other people in our fantasy world. There was only enough room and patience for us. Just John and me in his big empty apartment listening to Portishead and Korn, in the semi-dark getting drunk and chattering away.

John loved music so much. He had more albums than anyone I have ever known. If you wanted to hear it, chances are he had it. And there was never a shortage of volume. It’s a wonder that we never had the cops called on us. His stereo was in his bedroom and we spent a lot of time not in the bedroom-so you can imagine, the stereo had to be loud to get the full effect. Some of my favorite artists today are ones that I first heard with him. And to this day I can still listen to them and regress to those days.

Want to listen to it in the shower? No problem, babe. And he cranked it. Full base and all. Don’t want to drink beer to tonight? No problem, babe. We’ll drink champagne. Don’t want to wear your clothes? No problem, babe. Wear mine-or don’t wear any at all (yes he was a guy). Don’t want to go anywhere? No problem, babe. Let’s just stay in, lock the door, take the phone off the hook and pretend we aren’t here, if someone comes by. His desires were mine. My thoughts were his. John was not pretentious. He was not interested in impressing anyone. John did not need approval or permission. He was generous and kind. Funny and considerate. John was lively and had an electric smile. To this day, the smell of champagne reminds me of John.

After all these years have gone by, he's the only one of many, many people I have known and lost touch with that I have always thought about and wondered about. He was the only one that I wanted to have that one night with again. To sit quietly on the beach and watch the sunset together. To talk once more about our dreams. To hold each other's hand under the stars again. Just once more to see his smiling face. To hear his distinct voice. I can still hear it, after all these years, in my head. I still remember his skin. His eyes. His hair. I remember his ears and how his hands felt.

A few weeks ago, I decided, after all these years that I had to find him. Last I knew he was living in Florida. So that is where my search began. Every road I went down I came up empty. I spent weeks scouring everything I could. I called private investigators. I waited for returned calls. I finally did find his father's work phone number. I called and hung up. I called back and left a message and waited all weekend to get to Monday-surely he would call me back Monday morning-right? I left a message for a skip tracer on Friday and was told he would be located on Monday. I waited all weekend. I wanted Monday to come so badly. I woke up today certain this is the day! I am going to find my old friend today. What a great day this will be. And I waited. I made more calls. I searched more things on Google. I searched his sister-again. I searched his father-again. I searched his old addresses-again. I searched the property records. The criminal records. Made more phone calls. Just as I was feeling so close-so, so close to finding him again, I did find him.

I found his obituary. John died 39 days ago. I called his dad again. At that point, I wasn't sure that he was even John's dad. But he was. And he said Yes, John died last month. All this emotion flooded over me. I all of a sudden began to shake and cry. This incredible person in my life. He just died. We had never really finished what we started.

Somewhere along the way, John found love. That makes me so happy for him. John has three children, and they live with their mother, about an hour from me. He has a daughter and two sons. I spoke with his father for a short time, expressed my sorrow and grief. I told his father how much he meant to me and how I will always love him.

I will never again get that chance to hold his hand and sit quietly in the dark and talk about our dreams. I can't get those nights back. I can't get one more night. I can't feel that feeling of incredible connection again. I have only the love in my heart and my memories.

So I say don't ever lose touch with someone you care about. Never let someone you love leave you without saying goodbye. Even if you think it couldn't go anywhere. It may never have gone anywhere anyway, but if we had always been in touch, who knows, maybe it would be different today. If there is someone in your life that you have loved, no matter what kind of love it was, don't let them lose touch with you. If you have, take that chance it may fuck up your marriage or your relationship and find them. Find them and if you are lucky enough to find them alive and well, tell them you love them. Tell them you wish things had worked out differently. Tell them you miss them and think of them often. Tell them what your heart tells you. Don't think for a second you can go home again. You can't. But don't live your life wondering what might have been. You don't want to find yourself years later searching public records only to find you waited too long, and your friend has died.

Maybe it was John telling me this time, you have to find me. Maybe he was with me today. Maybe one day in another realm, we will meet again. Maybe one day in another life we will find each other again. Maybe next time it will be different. Maybe next time there won't be any wouldas, couldas, shouldas. Don't count on next time in this life. It’s not worth it. Life really is too short. Eight years have gone by in a flash. And my friend is lost to me. Yes, I have a husband and a daughter that I would not trade for anything. And surely I will move on from this and the pain with subside. My head will stop hurting from the crying. I will wake up tomorrow and it will hurt a little less each day.

I don’t know why it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t. I don’t know why it’s not fair, but it’s not. That day in April, when John called me, if had told me he really, really needed me, that he was in a bad place. That it was more than just missing me. Maybe I would have worked it out and gone down to see him. Maybe. But he didn’t say that. He didn’t tell me that he was hurting, things were not going well, and that he needed a comforting face and a shoulder. He just said, ‘Hey let me get you on the first flight out.” I said no.

I can speculate all I want. I will never know now. And even if I had found him alive and well, I know there is no reasonable expectation of fairytales. He had a life, children. I do too. But maybe if I had just tried to find him 2 months ago and had found he was going to be just over an hour from me, we could have gotten together. Maybe things would have been different that day in July.

We are talking about years that have gone by. In these years so much has happened. I have damn near lost my mind in the last month or so, and he lost his life. So maybe it’s not even the last several years that went by that were so damning, but the last few months.

A part of my heart aches for him. Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? I don't know, but I do know it was better to have loved him than to have never have known him. He changed me. He is a part of me. In this life, our business was left unfinished. We were meant to know each other briefly and move on. So that is why I say that one day, in another realm, or another life, we will find each other again. And maybe then we will finish what we started. John was a beautiful person. Believe it when you feel that weird connection of familiarity. Believe it when they say everything happens for a reason. I have dreamt of him several times over the last week. I look forward to sleeping tonight, for my dreams may bring comfort.

A beautiful person has been lost to us. I will never again know another person as special as he was. I am sure that no love I will ever know will be quite like the love between John and me.

I will always love you John. Always. Maybe one day we will meet again and have that one last night. Come to me in my dreams.