Your mistakes are haunting me

I woke up around 7:45 this morning from a dream that left me sleep-crying, that awkward whimpering and tears that happen while you sleep and makes you feel like shit when you awaken from its stranglehold. I slid my phone open to check the time and tried to lay back down and think about my dreams. I remembered one and figured that it was the cause of the sleep-crying. It was a dream about my dad's affair. This isn't the first time that I've dreamed of my dad's affair and I'm pretty sure it won't be the last. It was, however, the most disturbing of the dreams that have been related to his affair.

This first thing that I remember about this dream is sitting down in the front room (or parlor or fronch as we sometimes say in Chicago) and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table, which is only 10-15ft away from the chair I was sitting at, talking on the phone. After a few minutes of him talking on the phone, I got the impression that he was talking to the whore that he had an affair with. I walked over to him and demanded to see his phone, which he became protective off and tried to shut as I grabbed it out of his hands. When I got the phone, I heard her say my dad's name and asked if he was okay. I flipped my shit in the dream, as I'm sure I would have done if it had really happened. I hung the phone up and punched my dad in the face as he sat at our kitchen table. The punch wasn't as effective as I had probably hoped and he was still sitting upright in the dining chair, so I shoved him and got in his face and said, "How the fuck are you doing this AGAIN?" He just stared at me kind of blankly, this emotionally detached look that only further pissed me off. He looked like an innocent little kid that got caught sneaking into the kitchen to get a snack before dinner. I didn't understand how he was being so fucking complacent as hot tears were streaming down my face and dripping on his shirt as I hovered over him. I slapped him and told him to get the fuck out of the house. The dream gets a little foggy here and the next part that I remember is a little disjointed from this point. I was on the stairs coming down from my bedroom to the kitchen area when I picked up my dad's phone and talked to the whore that my dad slept with. Her slimy voice gave me the creeps as she said, "Hello, baby," assuming that it was my dad who would be answering the phone. I can't remember what I said to her, but I'm sure it was something filled with hate. The next part I remember is being on the computer on Facebook, looking at her Facebook page and finding comments that my dad made on her pictures. The odd thing is that I know what this woman looks like, but she didn't appear to be the same woman as the photos I was looking at, even though I knew it was her that was playing the role in my dream.

After the Facebook part, I awoke with fat tear drops waiting for gravity to make them slide down the sides of my face. I instantly tried to think about why I was having this dream again. I say again because I've had similar dreams that all have to do with my dad's affair, but nothing was as passionate as this dream was. The physical violence alone was different in this dream because it hadn't been present in the others. I'm sure there could be millions of reasons about why I was dreaming this. It could be that my mom's birthday was Thursday, it could be that I had talked to my dad that day, it could be related to Rocker, I'm not really sure.

To be perfectly honest, I'd have to say that it's my own insecurities that are coming to light through my dreams. I'm afraid that I'll get cheated on, I'm afraid that my dad will be unfaithful again, I'm afraid that I'll sabotage any future relationships because I've done it in the past. Usually when I sense that I'm getting attached or starting to genuinely like a person who expresses interest in me as well, I start making excuses about their flaws or what they may perceive my flaws to be. With Rocker, the obvious one is that we haven't met. It's easy to tell myself that he won't like me outside of my shining phone/online personality. It's easy to not let myself like him as much as he appears to like me because it's a self-preservation technique that I've developed somewhere along the lines of my adolescence.

He tells me he likes me all the time and I can only say that I like him while we're talking through texts. The other day he told me that he liked me on the phone and I froze up and finagled my way out of response by some sarcastic comment that could have multiple interpretations so that I don't have to explain myself. I feel weird being as cutesy as I want to be. I want to call him baby or sunshine or schmoopie pie, but I don't. I don't call him anything when we talk on the phone. I barely say his name, which might not seem like a big deal from an observer's point of view, but I know why I do it. It's to make it easier to split when I find a flaw in him or he finds one in me. It's to make it seem like it doesn't matter or that he doesn't matter, when he does.

I miss him when we don't talk for a few hours, but I can't tell him that. I start to, but then I feel awkward and stop mid-sentence. I'm open with him in any other aspect of my life but I can't express my feelings. Am I really emotionally retarded? How did I get this way? There's theories that I could come up with that involve various incidents in my life that have made me guarded, but that shouldn't be an excuse and I don't want it to be an excuse. He's such a good guy and I feel like I'm not a good enough girl in any respect for him. I want him and I want him to want me, but I can't get over this fucking fear in my head that's been preventing me from making a connection with another person besides just something physical.


I don't know what to do and I'm feeling lost. I keep telling myself that in the long run everything will work out, but I really can't make those generic statements when I'm being my own worst enemy. I know love deserves to be treated well...but do I deserve to be loved?