I've realized that right now I'm in the position of being cared for and being important to someone, without having allowed myself to open up to them or commit to them fully.

And I've also realized that part of me feels comfortable in this position. Part of me feels good knowing that someone out there wants to make me happy... or just wants me, in general. I feel happy knowing that, and at the same time I feel safe. Safe because I haven't shared too much of myself with them yet. Safe because I haven't committed myself to caring for them or wanting to be with them to quite the extent that I know they have.

By saying this, I am doing nothing more than being blatantly honest with whoever is bothering to read these words. I'm not pretending that my attitude is not a completely selfish one to have. I'm just saying that I realized today that this is truly how I'm feeling right now.

And as long as I'm being blatantly honest, I'll go ahead and say one more thing. I know I have always had a problem allowing myself to take that plunge, allowing myself to fall for someone so hard that I open up completely to that person. I don't think I ever let myself completely let go when I was with Nathaniel.

But there has been one person I opened up to, told everything to, and felt myself getting ready to take that plunge for. Hell, maybe I did take that plunge. Maybe I did actually allow myself to love that person. And then that all kind of came to an end, and I spent a long time trying to put that situation behind me. But it refuses to be gone completely, even now.

For a long time after things didn't work out between the two of us, I was haunted by these dreams of being loved and cherished by that person. Of being completely and utterly happy with them. And then I would wake up in the morning to the fact that I wasn't with them, that all my happiness of the night before was nothing but a trick my mind had been playing on me. I say I was "haunted" by these dreams... and "haunted" is really the perfect word to describe it. A few nights of more-or-less undisturbed sleep would go by, and then another one of those dreams would strike. Each time I awoke from one of those dreams, I would be forced to re-realize the fact that I was alone and no longer cared for by that person. Any progress I had made towards getting accustomed to the fact that things had changed would be invalidated, and it was like I was back at square one, having to learn to deal with the whole situation all over again. I felt like even my own mind had turned against me, playing its cruel jokes.

And then eventually a long stretch of time passed without me having one of those dreams. And things have gotten much better. I think I have put what happened behind me as much as I'm ever going to be able to. And even though I remember what happened, and I remember feeling sad, I'm okay with that. I can live with it and still enjoy life and move on.

But it seems those dreams aren't quite finished with me yet. This weekend I dreamed about that person again... twice. And both times I was being held, comforted, loved... and I was so happy. Everything that had happened in the past was over and forgiven, and the two of us were just happy being together.

And then after both dreams I woke up to a situation that bears absolutely no resemblance to my dreams of that person. While my feelings upon waking were nowhere near as bad as they used to be when those dreams first started so many months ago, I was still left feeling unsettled and a little bit upset by those dreams. Why, after so many months of respite, would my mind start playing its old tricks on me again? Why should I have such dreams about a person who does not care for me at all that way in real life? Why should I find myself feeling so happy in those dreams over a situation that's part of the past, if in fact it ever existed in the first place?

I don't find myself feeling so devastated and alone as I once did after having dreams like this. But I do feel confused. Why can't I be happy with my current situation? Why can't I let someone who cares about me go ahead and make me happy like he wants to? Why can't I have that kind of dream about a man who actually does care about me and would gladly love me the way I want to be loved? Why am I stuck reliving a past that isn't even really a past, that only ever partially came to be?

I don't want to just take the easy road and allow someone else to care for me without letting myself get too attached. I want to let myself get close to him. But I can feel myself clamming up, shutting myself off so he can't get to me like someone else once did. I can't stand the thought of being haunted like that again if things didn't work out between us. For fuck's sake, I suppose I' m still haunted. Why else would I be having these dreams? Why else would I be thinking about that person right now??

If he doesn't love me, if he doesn't want me, I wish he would just get out of my head and leave me alone, for fuck's sake. Let me just be happy with someone else.