Dear Dr. Freud,

You probably remember that I told you a story when I’d found out my friend died in July, about how my Mom had found me crying in my room one night and had the guidance counselor call me in the next day to try to “deal” with it, or whatever he was supposed to do – but we left, and talked, and watched the Office, and I never got to the point of that story, which was that I rarely allow(ed) myself to cry alone after that. Partly thanks to the paranoia of living with my Mom – her paranoia, really, but it ran over into everybody – and partly thanks to my own dysfunctional ways of dealing with myself, I didn’t feel safe with “privacy.”

I mean, she’d proven that I didn’t actually have any, that it was an illusion, when she came in and saw me crying and then told my guidance counselor, who didn’t know me or my situation at all. Or when she read my journal, or the letter(s) I wrote to my English teacher, or when she told other people that I didn’t have any real problems, that it was “just PMS [laugh]”.

At least in public I could see my audience.

So I only cried in front of other people, which was weird because it was also embarrassing. It’s not like that’s what I wanted; it’s just all I could manage.

It’s a weird thing for an introvert to need other people to help process in this way, I think. It makes me wonder sometimes if I’m a closet extrovert who was ruined by a strange childhood. (But I don’t worry much about it. Who really cares? I am what I am.)

I’ve never been a closet depressive, though – I mean, I’m not one of those people who hides sadness well, and I’m probably not the sort who would make a good alcoholic or addict, either. I’m not good at hiding or masking, and so I’m not good at denial. Which is why it surprised me when you pointed it out, even unwittingly, about the airport and watching Spencer go – I had to think about it. (How many times had I avoided the question? ‘How are you’ should be simple. What else might I be hiding from myself?) I would usually know these things about myself before anyone.

My eye is still red from last night, the crying and lack of sleep – the right one.

I mailed a letter to Spencer yesterday, mostly made up of Mitch Hedberg jokes. I didn’t have an envelope, so I wrote it on one side of a blank sheet of paper and folded and taped it shut and walked to the post office. (That's where I went when I left; then I went to the library to get an Advocate.)

I brought that handwriting book back to the library Monday, and the dream book along with it – so I don’t know what the book would say about my dreams last night. You were there, and we were talking for a long time. We were outside, near trees, and it was daytime. Those are good signs. I looked for the dream book when I woke up this morning, wanting to know exactly what they meant.

The dream book never told me anything I couldn’t have figured out by myself, though. And the handwriting book didn’t tell me anything at all. Small “I,” it said, indicated a poor ego and insecurity – a poor sense of self. It rushed off onto other “I”s, seriffed and sans-serif, mother and father strokes, independent-thinkers and smothered, resentful child-adults, and didn’t give me any more space for explanation. I remember the first journal where I used “i,” and in that case, they were right – I was insecure and insufficient. I was 14.

But the next year, I took Algebra 2 and learned about imaginary numbers, the italic i symbol for them, and adopted it. That’s what my I stands for: the possibility of something uncountable. i intend to be invisible and undefinable. i intended to find a place to hide. I only use small-i when I’m writing to myself.

I’ve carved out places, in other words, to be myself and sufficient and to find privacy.

But I’m glad I didn’t have to rely on them yesterday.

This is all pretty pretentious, but I guess the idea of a blog is pretentious to begin with – so what else could I do?

My intention was to say thanks.

So thanks.

Etc.

A.

P.S. – Yes, it was probably a sex dream. They’re always sex dreams.