The Letter [Extravaganza 2019]
Feb 10, 2019 17:30:04 GMT
Post by Manchee on Feb 10, 2019 17:30:04 GMT
This is an Extravaganza piece for vray based on the prompt "Thoughts to a friend." It's super short, partially due to the format that it's a letter, but also because I wanted to approach this as if I were actually writing to a real-life friend and wouldn't be sending them something like this that was pages and pages long. It's a simple stream of consciousness based on an actual dream I had with bits of actual life thrown into the mix to make it as authentic as I could, because I actually wanted to do some reflecting for a bit of mild catharsis, if that's even a thing.
January 28, 2019
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night from a dream that you can’t quite remember? And you lie in bed for a few minutes trying to remember what it was that woke you up, but you don’t remember until you’re on the verge of passing out again, and of course when you remember what it was all of the emotions from the dream hit you quite suddenly and set off a good bit of anxiety that keeps you from falling back asleep for the rest of the night. I feel like it’s never a good dream that this happens with - how often do you get hit with a surge of happy feelings when remembering a dream that woke you? Knowing how similar we are, I’d bet that neither of us have ever experienced the latter.
I’m only writing this down because I feel like it will help me process what I felt and move on from it. Dwelling on pessimistic thoughts that I’m going to end up alone and friendless hasn’t happened as often as it used to thanks to my medication (and me making a conscious effort to remain positive during moments when I used to sink deeper into a depressive state), but for some reason this dream is sticking to me and I’d rather get it out on paper and be done with it than actually bring it up to you in person and have you tell me that I’m overreacting for no reason and have it be weird between us again. I know you hate when I try to talk about my anxieties over thinking too much about something you said or something that happened. If it were about anyone else I’d come straight to you and we could have a normal conversation about it, I’m sure. But that’s the downfall of you being my only real friend - you share all of my good and bad moments almost equally.
Really, though, the bad moments have been considerably less since I started with these anti-depressants. I never thought that actually getting medicated for my own defective thought processes would be this helpful. But I won’t go too much into that because I’m digressing from the whole cause of this letter that I have no intention on actually sending your way.
The dream was really short (of course I have no way to time it, but compared to other dreams it felt like it was over as quickly as it started… but then again I guess all dreams are like that). I was by myself somewhere. The more I try to think about where that was, the harder it is to picture. Somewhere plain and gray is the best I can do. I called you or you called me, and we were talking about normal things but you were at a party or with other people and were a bit distracted as far as my dream-self can tell, which was fine because I wanted you to have a fun time with whatever you were doing, but then…
Someone else came close enough to the phone that I could hear them, and you were talking to them in a way that told me they were a very close friend of yours. I know that irl you don’t have anyone like that besides me, but in this unconscious universe I knew without a doubt that this person had replaced me, or at least what I used to be, and whatever version of our friendship that exists here in the real world was over in this dream.
That’s when I woke up. With any other person, I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. I’m at a point in my life where I’ve got the people who mean the most to me and I don’t feel the need to go out and find anyone else. What would be the point? I’m happy (and I can say that honestly, despite this dream nagging at the back of my brain right now) and want to enjoy this part of my life as much as I can; I’m only going to be in this moment once. “Life’s too short to never have lived,” right? I’ve thought about that quote since I heard it in a song almost ten years ago but never applied it to my own life very well.
I think the fact that I’m writing this at all is progress. Even just six months ago, I would have brooded over the dream all day and probably avoided your calls and texts like you had actually replaced me with someone else. I’d tell myself that it was only a dream, but the part of me that’s fucked up without a tiny pill every morning would convince me otherwise and keep me mulling it over until something else would knock me back into a normal way of thinking about it. Now, I’m already nearly over it and it hasn’t even been more than a few hours.
Adopting Timmy was the right choice (about as right as finally seeing the doctor to get this medication) even though his constant begging for food is driving me crazy. I knew that we was big for an axew, but I didn’t know listening to the doctor and cutting dry food out of his diet would make him even more vocal than he already was. It’s like I can’t even turn over in the middle of the night without him thinking it’s meal time and mewing until I tell him to go back to sleep. I’m used to owning a rockruff back in high school that was much more obedient with stuff like this, but I’m getting used to it, I guess.
It’s actually because of you that I felt confident in adopting him. All that time you spent teaching me how to interact with your bagon made the transition pretty easy, to be honest. Dragon-types were never my forté, but there’s something about them if you can manage to forge that bond that makes them so great to own. The term “Emotional Support Pokémon” does sound like an excuse to be able to bring an axew into an apartment that usually doesn’t allow them, but having an ESP has really been helping because now when I wake up from a dream that I’ve lost my best friend to someone else, I can fall asleep with Timmy curled up against my chest and know that everything will be okay.
It sounds almost too good to be true, but I really do believe that my life is going to be a lot easier now that most of my depression and anxiety is much more manageable. I actually feel like I can live, which sounds so dramatic but it’s true. The world is already so miserable with shitty people in power and the climate getting absolutely fucked, and even now with these other-dimensional Pokémon or Ultra Beasts or whatever classification scientists want to give them jumping out of wormholes and screwing things up even more, like… I just want to be able to be happy doing the things that bring me joy and after rambling about a whole lot of things that I’ve strung together under the loose thread of a dream where we were no longer friends, I can confidently say that you are something (someone) who makes me very happy.
And so is Timmy, and getting back into writing, and knowing that I’m nearly finished school and out in the real world as a fully-functioning adult. It might not be a whole lot at the moment, but it’s enough to keep me going and it’ll only get better from here because I’ve got someone like you in my life who I love and know will always be there for me even if we meet other people who become close friends. There’s no point in worrying about something like that, whether real or in a dream, because life goes on and if we don’t enjoy what we do have, we will never be able to move forward and accept other happinesses into our lives.
That’s all. ♥
I Had A Dream That We Were No Longer Friends
January 28, 2019
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night from a dream that you can’t quite remember? And you lie in bed for a few minutes trying to remember what it was that woke you up, but you don’t remember until you’re on the verge of passing out again, and of course when you remember what it was all of the emotions from the dream hit you quite suddenly and set off a good bit of anxiety that keeps you from falling back asleep for the rest of the night. I feel like it’s never a good dream that this happens with - how often do you get hit with a surge of happy feelings when remembering a dream that woke you? Knowing how similar we are, I’d bet that neither of us have ever experienced the latter.
I’m only writing this down because I feel like it will help me process what I felt and move on from it. Dwelling on pessimistic thoughts that I’m going to end up alone and friendless hasn’t happened as often as it used to thanks to my medication (and me making a conscious effort to remain positive during moments when I used to sink deeper into a depressive state), but for some reason this dream is sticking to me and I’d rather get it out on paper and be done with it than actually bring it up to you in person and have you tell me that I’m overreacting for no reason and have it be weird between us again. I know you hate when I try to talk about my anxieties over thinking too much about something you said or something that happened. If it were about anyone else I’d come straight to you and we could have a normal conversation about it, I’m sure. But that’s the downfall of you being my only real friend - you share all of my good and bad moments almost equally.
Really, though, the bad moments have been considerably less since I started with these anti-depressants. I never thought that actually getting medicated for my own defective thought processes would be this helpful. But I won’t go too much into that because I’m digressing from the whole cause of this letter that I have no intention on actually sending your way.
The dream was really short (of course I have no way to time it, but compared to other dreams it felt like it was over as quickly as it started… but then again I guess all dreams are like that). I was by myself somewhere. The more I try to think about where that was, the harder it is to picture. Somewhere plain and gray is the best I can do. I called you or you called me, and we were talking about normal things but you were at a party or with other people and were a bit distracted as far as my dream-self can tell, which was fine because I wanted you to have a fun time with whatever you were doing, but then…
Someone else came close enough to the phone that I could hear them, and you were talking to them in a way that told me they were a very close friend of yours. I know that irl you don’t have anyone like that besides me, but in this unconscious universe I knew without a doubt that this person had replaced me, or at least what I used to be, and whatever version of our friendship that exists here in the real world was over in this dream.
That’s when I woke up. With any other person, I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. I’m at a point in my life where I’ve got the people who mean the most to me and I don’t feel the need to go out and find anyone else. What would be the point? I’m happy (and I can say that honestly, despite this dream nagging at the back of my brain right now) and want to enjoy this part of my life as much as I can; I’m only going to be in this moment once. “Life’s too short to never have lived,” right? I’ve thought about that quote since I heard it in a song almost ten years ago but never applied it to my own life very well.
I think the fact that I’m writing this at all is progress. Even just six months ago, I would have brooded over the dream all day and probably avoided your calls and texts like you had actually replaced me with someone else. I’d tell myself that it was only a dream, but the part of me that’s fucked up without a tiny pill every morning would convince me otherwise and keep me mulling it over until something else would knock me back into a normal way of thinking about it. Now, I’m already nearly over it and it hasn’t even been more than a few hours.
Adopting Timmy was the right choice (about as right as finally seeing the doctor to get this medication) even though his constant begging for food is driving me crazy. I knew that we was big for an axew, but I didn’t know listening to the doctor and cutting dry food out of his diet would make him even more vocal than he already was. It’s like I can’t even turn over in the middle of the night without him thinking it’s meal time and mewing until I tell him to go back to sleep. I’m used to owning a rockruff back in high school that was much more obedient with stuff like this, but I’m getting used to it, I guess.
It’s actually because of you that I felt confident in adopting him. All that time you spent teaching me how to interact with your bagon made the transition pretty easy, to be honest. Dragon-types were never my forté, but there’s something about them if you can manage to forge that bond that makes them so great to own. The term “Emotional Support Pokémon” does sound like an excuse to be able to bring an axew into an apartment that usually doesn’t allow them, but having an ESP has really been helping because now when I wake up from a dream that I’ve lost my best friend to someone else, I can fall asleep with Timmy curled up against my chest and know that everything will be okay.
It sounds almost too good to be true, but I really do believe that my life is going to be a lot easier now that most of my depression and anxiety is much more manageable. I actually feel like I can live, which sounds so dramatic but it’s true. The world is already so miserable with shitty people in power and the climate getting absolutely fucked, and even now with these other-dimensional Pokémon or Ultra Beasts or whatever classification scientists want to give them jumping out of wormholes and screwing things up even more, like… I just want to be able to be happy doing the things that bring me joy and after rambling about a whole lot of things that I’ve strung together under the loose thread of a dream where we were no longer friends, I can confidently say that you are something (someone) who makes me very happy.
And so is Timmy, and getting back into writing, and knowing that I’m nearly finished school and out in the real world as a fully-functioning adult. It might not be a whole lot at the moment, but it’s enough to keep me going and it’ll only get better from here because I’ve got someone like you in my life who I love and know will always be there for me even if we meet other people who become close friends. There’s no point in worrying about something like that, whether real or in a dream, because life goes on and if we don’t enjoy what we do have, we will never be able to move forward and accept other happinesses into our lives.
That’s all. ♥
