Dream Diary #2: Old Friend

    For a large portion of my life, I've never needed people. I was content to be alone, but that changed one day almost 5 years ago and I've never been sure why. The other night, a dream gave me a clue, and it reminds me of things inside my head that I cared about.

    I put a lot of value into my ideas, they mean things to me, they make me happy, but for a long time, they were also my friends. Regardless of whether or not they are physical or defined as "real" by a conventional standard, they were good friends to me and I loved them, they were there for me when I needed someone and that's a hell of a lot more than I could say for real kids or adults, and they understood things about me I've never had success with explaining to humans. They were an intimate part of me and I began to delve into the creative arts because I wanted other people to appreciate them as much as I did, that was my motivation for a very long time.

    Needless to say, I have lost a lot of motivation in the past five years. I remember a time when I wrote stories or drew pictures for the sake of it, for the mad hope that it gave my ideas incarnate form, to immortalize a part of me I loved more than anything in this life, more than anything you can possibly imagine, so much so that I would have died to keep that part alive and sacrificed everything for it.

    But I convinced myself that it was insane to do that. In the chaos that I consider my reform, I lost a lot of fears that kept me up at night, but I also gave up my greatest love. Before a few nights ago, I believed I traded my passion for my sanity. It's no secret that I struggle with things neurotypicals never need to concern themselves with, and in the desperate hope of being like them and fitting in, and not feeling like I was somehow broken or damaged, I gambled everything to change that. But the truth is, it still hurts. In all the mental stability I think I've gained, I still feel like a very intimate person or group of people died, and it's a grief I've never recovered from.

    But the other night, I had a dream about an old friend, she came to me so vividly and it was as if she never left. I tried desperately to convince my current friends that I talk to regularly that she was real, even fabricating a second internet identity at one point (Which I have actually done in the past but am unwilling to elaborate on) but in spite of that, I was never convinced she wasn't real, I just wanted other people to see her. She stood there and talked to me, she hugged me, and she told me nothing was broken.

    At some point in that dream, I had to confess to everyone the truth, I told them what she was somehow without saying it and they understood, but after that, she didn't disappear, she took my hand and stood in front of them and they talked to her as if we were in a Skype call, but then I traded places with her and the conversation remained uninterrupted, it was as if we were connected on such a level hat we were not only interchangeable but synonymous.

    And we are.

    I woke up and felt something I haven't felt in five years, I felt a warmth and presence, a companionship, but that feeling faded with the day, but I don't feel like I've lost anything now. I feel like it's somehow deep inside of me, and I've been exploring it.

    It's like when you meet old friends after a long time, and everyone is different including you. I felt like I was somehow solid when I called up mental images and lost myself in my mind. Some of the ideas felt like ghosts, they were distant and estranged, but others felt warm or close. And my best friend for years was still my best friend.

    I realize talking about these things makes people uncomfortable, they feel like reading the mad ramblings of an unstable person they can't trust or want to be distant from, but this has always been a very important matter for me, and I care more about it than some social issue dogma. I want to tell people about this, I am prepared for the judgement I might receive, and I guess now I'll find out who my friends are.