The Ache of Emptiness and Comfort

Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning - Last dream series of the night

I am in college in class. One of the classes I've been attending, which is the one I'm in now, I've been kind of slacking off on. The teacher, who looks sort of like my old math teacher from CC (but the topic is not math, it's something to do with history) plays a movie at each class and at the last class we had a paper to write in class. As I'd totally been spacing out during the previous class and the paper related to the movie, I had done pretty badly.

Now I'm back at the next class, deciding I better start paying attention and taking notes during the movie, since I'm doing pretty badly. There are 3 or 4 other people who show up for class that day, and we are seated around a long table with the far end pointing at the TV where the movie will be shown.

One of guys in class has been really irritating me, he always makes smart aleck remarks at me or acts sarcastic, and it is annoying. This happens at each class. I can't clearly remember much about how he looks now but he had shaggy light brown hair that was several inches long at least and was probably around my age or slightly older. I knew him from the class at the time, and his name, but I can't recall that either. This class I am seated at the very end of the long table, with people scattered on either side, waiting for the teacher to come in. I am slouched down in my chair, with my notebook out, feeling very discouraged and kind of depressed and unhappy, presumably about the class, but really as I've been feeling a lot lately. All signs kind of indicate to stay away from me.

Shaggy hair guy comes in and sits down next to me at the end of the table (not a usual occurrence) and makes one of his "funny" remarks as usual. I am weary, but at some level I appreciate that he does talk to me each time, there's some level of affection there I realize. There is scattered talk about having to pay attention to the movie this time becuase we'll probably have to write about it. The teacher comes in and starts to play the movie, and shaggy hair guy leans against to me very softly and rests his head on top of mine. I lay my head on his shoulder. It feels SO good I almost cry. I feel so comforted in my misery and lean back against him and we stay like that, he rests his hand tenderly on my head or my shoulder and we just lean together for the movie not really paying attention after all, or to any remarks from the teacher or others. I am aching inside with how good it feels to be held like this. The fact that I previously thought he was annoying is completely gone, and that this is wrong doesn't even matter because it touches the pain so much.

Something wakes me up at this point and I feel so empty, and want to go back to that feeling in the dream. I go back to sleep trying to get back to it, and though I end up going back to school again in the continuing dream, I can't get back to that scene or the guy.

In the continuing dream, it's the next quarter starting, first day. I am still hoping to run into him again and recapture the comfort of the previous dream. I am back at my parents house, packing up for school early in the morning, and with my are my sister and either a cousin or my brother, I'm not sure. We all get our stuff together. As we are leaving there's some altercation on the road involving my aunt and uncle and our dog. We go down to see what's going on, apparently they think he was doing something wrong and are yelling at him. He barks and another dog, a female, comes running down the hill at his call. Apparently this is also our dog but relatively new. She is a German Shepard like him, but her coat is actually white with pink vertical stripes, much like a pair of pants I used to have. She has another name but our dog calls her Cornelius. My father comes down to the commotion and I ask her if this is really her name, and he says he guesses it's the right name, as that's what the other dog has been calling her and it seems to fit.

As my father is handling the dog situation, whatever it was, we get into the car and drive into school. It's unclear what college campus this is, really, it sort of morphs between CC and EWU and this other version of EWU that has appeared in some of my other dreams. It's quite early in the morning, about 20 to 7.

My sister and I part ways in a classroom and arrange where we will meet, after some discussion we decide to meet in the "blue classroom with the cartoon characters painted on the walls". Both of us can picture and remember this room but neither of us actually remember exactly where it is, but we are sure we will find it. I can't remember where my first class is, although I know it starts at 7:30. There is an enormous clock on the wall in the classroom I'm in, where my sister and I split up, but I can't tell if it says 6:30 or 7:30. At first I think it's 6:30 but then when I look closer it appears to be 7:30. I finally ask some other people in the room, and they assure me that it is 6:30 but the clock is set wrong. I hope this is true, and I hurry off the the library to print off my schedule so I can find my first class. Hopefully it will have the same guy in it (one of the classes I'm taking is the same class, continuing the previous one, so it should).

I set off for the campus library. I am carrying a very awkward bag of stuff. In addition to my lunch and a pair of very dirty hiking boots, and school stuff, I also have 4 very large and awkward ceramic vases that I made in a previous class. I don't know why I'm hauling them around except that I'm hoping to show them to somebody, but I really am thinking I should have left them at home. I'm afraid they will break and it's very difficult to carry them all. I think I eventually decide to put them back in the van so I don't have to haul them around.

I wake up again before I make it back to the comfort of the shaggy haired guy, and I can still feel that loss in my chest. The emptiness was already there but he made me aware of it by comforting it, so when the comfort is taken away, I feel the ache more strongly.