It was just a dream. 


It was another sweltering night in Madrid. I lay face down on the bed with crimson sheets. I feel every inch of my skin that makes contact with the fabric. When laying down, not all of my skin can breathe at the same time no matter what position. My legs stick together and it pains me to tear them apart as I thrash back and forth trying to find comfort. Frustration creeps in. I’m wasting my own time, missing out on needed rest. It’s been an hour of this so I think I'll grab my phone, just for a little while. 

After mindlessly scrolling on Instagram bores me, I fall into a deep dive. I go to Facebook (archaic for my age, I know) and start looking through my best friend’s friend list. I realize I haven’t even followed her siblings. My Facebook was hacked and since getting my new one I’ve tried to be really conscious of who I follow, the content I allow myself to see on the day-to-day. My best friend has always been much friendlier than me so she follows everyone from my high school, literally. I start clicking on the people I haven’t thought about in years. One of the girls I hated in middle school is a singer now. This girl I always liked is a scientist and I feel happy for her. This cute guy moved to Florida–disgusting. That’s when I came across my ex.


It was just a dream. 

I met my ex on Tinder. I showed her profile to my friends when I talked about her because I thought she was so pretty. She looked cool: dyed short hair in a messy bun, green cargo pants and black shirt like a Kim Possible get-up. She drove from an hour away in her red Subaru into the city to see me. I met her at the door, it was drizzling. It’s been over ten years but I remember it well. I was just twenty years old. We spent the whole night talking and I didn’t get the courage to kiss her until the daylight spilled in from the window. We got coffee as the ending segway of the date. Someone tried to break into her car and the alarm killed the battery. Luckily we were promptly saved by a young Audi-owner who jumped her car and she went on her way. 


It was just a dream.


She was my first love. I lost my virginity in the empty dorm above hers. We drove back and forth to see each other, alternating her place and mine. We smoked, drank and went to a party or two. Mostly though, we slept, ate ‘diner’ food and made out. We broke up after a few months because the weekend I met her family didn’t go well. I guess I didn’t perform up to her expectations. The weed made me paranoid and I didn’t want to go to the haunted house like she had planned. She accused me of just thinking she was a ‘snack’ and I was ashamed. I remember giving her stuff back in a box, mostly clothes, and feeling quite depressed. 


It was just a dream.


We almost got back together after a year. I’m pretty sure I was the one who reached out. She had dyed her hair blonde and purple. I loved the feeling of escaping the city to go see her. We got sushi. I went on an alcohol run with her and her friends, just waiting in the car. I didn’t know it at the time but she would go on to date one of the guys that was in the car with us. She wanted to have an open relationship and that’s why we broke it off the second time after a few weeks. 


It was just a dream.


Yet again, I couldn’t sleep. Even though it was my usual bedtime: I wasn’t tired yet. I picked up my phone again and fell into an even worse wormhole: reading old texts. I was known for texting my exes whenever I was drunk when I was younger. Just a dash of alcohol in my system and I no longer had the ‘stop and think’ behavior to refrain. I was mostly likely to send Snapchats of my tits as well–mostly to people who had already seen them before. My cringey behavior is still an embarrassment but also proof of growth. I had texted her during the pandemic. I was sending her the magazine collages that I had made. I was very bored. I wrote a story about her. A mere 100 words, a ‘tiny love story,’ for the Modern Love column of the New York Times. They called me that summer (2020) while I was dog-sitting for my cousins. I was ecstatic. I thought that if someone had written a story about me, I would want to read it. So I sent it to her. I think she was offended because that’s the last time she answered my texts. 


It was just a dream.


I was on the cusp of sleep. The kind where I’m slowly drifting out of real thoughts like ‘I need to ask my mother-in-law to bring me more tomatoes from her garden’ and ‘I need to reschedule my haircut.’ And I started thinking more ‘dream thoughts,’ more abstract and surreal. One specific night floods back into my mind. We went out at this bar that I remain fond of, it’s all wood and has a name that suggests it’s from the wild west. We walked back to my apartment holding hands. Problematically, I like making love drunk because I don’t worry about the little things. Does my breath smell? Can they tell how sweaty I am? Did they say that nice thing just so we would ‘get it on?’ It all fades away with some ‘fire water.’ It’s rare when an event gives you all the feelings that you had in the moment just by thinking about it. If it does happen, it’s usually something negative. Like how a car crash can tighten your chest just like it did in the moment. Even in my dream I can feel it: deep in my belly, glowing out of my shoulders and in my cheeks. I really liked her that night. 


It was just a dream.


I wake up to my wife’s alarm at 6:30am like I do every day. I make sure she’s up and try to convince myself not to slip into unconsciousness again. I have to start my day so I won’t be late. I jump into the shower and the dream comes back to me. It’s always blurry but I know my ex was there and we were doing the things we used to do. I try to shake it off. Although it was a pleasant dream, I feel guilty dreaming about other women while sleeping next to my wife. I wouldn’t want her doing the same to me. 


It was just a dream. 


It’s another 6:30 weekday morning not unlike the rest. I had a dream of similar content again. It feels like we were just together, like I just saw her for real. I feel icky. My logical brain knows that I, in fact, wasn’t. ‘Dream her’ is nothing like the real her. ‘Real her’ is my ex for a reason. ‘Real her’ has personal issues and there’s no world in which we would have worked out long term. I don’t even know ‘real her’ anymore, my version is completely outdated. My wife is everything that I want and I don’t understand why my brain is causing me such distress sending me these kinds of thoughts. Is it because I’m horny? Am I subconsciously not satisfied with my relationship? Is it just an effect from all the media that insists cheating is nearly inevitable? What do I do about it?


It was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream. 


I believe some dreams are messages from the subconscious–but not all of them. In this case, I don’t think it means any disaster for my relationship. My brain remembers. My body remembers. It processes things while I sleep. Lots of people don’t even remember their dreams. I feel fortunate that sometimes I can, although sometimes, they are nightmares. The dreams stopped. I blocked my ex so I could stop seeing her all the time. I’m sure that helped with things. She’s out of my life and out of my mind. When my mind goes there, I push it away and focus on what's in front of me. I am ‘living the dream,’ with my wife.