Second dream

I was living in an apartment that took up most of a house, with six other MC people, all women. We had arranged things in a way that pleased me, dividing larger rooms into sections that served as bedrooms and limiting ourselves so that each person had some semblance of privacy. I felt positively about our lives, and mine in particular.

There had been a push from the outside, though, from Aaron and three other MC guys he knew, including David and Luke, to let them live with us. Sharon was Aaron's contact, but she was not able to stop him from pushing his way into our living arrangements.

His pushiness didn't end there. By the time I'd gotten home the day after learning Aaron was moving himself and his friends into our apartment, Aaron had taken over rearranging things in a way that made sense to him. He'd moved all our beds, and some extras he'd brought in, into a long, large room that had originally held partioned areas for four or five of us at a time; there were now nine beds in there, including two bunk bed sets and one bed set across a walking path, skewed in the middle of the room. The partitions and privacy were gone.

I hated the arrangements and tried to point out particular problems with them, including that putting a bed across a walking path in the middle of the room would mean no sleep for the person in that bed, and stepping over it for everyone who wanted to walk through. Aaron didn't listen. David and Luke were around occasionally, but rushed off to attend to more rearrangements whenever I came into the room.

The smaller room off the long, large one held all the books that had once been spread around the house according to their owners. Every wall was covered by bookshelves, but even in that case, our books were being replaced by Aaron's. In the middle of that room was a set of bunk beds.

I pointed out that we didn't need those beds, since we already had a total of 11 in the long room, and were only attempting to house 11 people. Aaron made up some reason for needing bunk beds in addition -- like that he only liked beds as furniture, and this would eliminate the need for couches or chairs -- and ignored the radical ridiculousness of this stance. So did everyone else.

It was at that point, as I saw my life devolving to a point I could barely contemplate, my bed shoved into an unpleasing location, my books being re-boxed, that the identity of the fourth boy about to move in with us was revealed.

It was, inevitably, Matt.

Rather than begin the keening wail of outrage that would have indicated the psychotic break with reality that would have accompanied this news in real life, I reacted to this news with unwarranted relief. Matt walked in the door, and there I was next to him, asking how his day had gone, smiling and being overly attentive. I disgusted myself even in the dream. This reaction was just another thing I couldn't control.

In the dream, this was all happening second semester of our senior year, and we'd already started classes for the term. Still, as Marc picked me up and drove me to some other apartment building (possibly the old apartment the guys had been living in) where we'd find leftover furniture haphazardly strewn about, I contemplated finding a way to move out.

At the other apartment building, we looked around for a bit before David and Luke showed up. They took over a card game we'd been playing, turning the game into their own, and I got up and left in protest. No one seemed to notice.

After that game was over, Marc, who had been friendly toward my new housemates, asked if I wanted to play a new game they'd pulled out. Barely able to speak, I just stared at him.

"You know what I think you want more than that -- to go home." It wasn't really a question, but I nodded in relief. He drove me back.

Before we got into the car, Debbie appeared and I told her how enraged I was by the series of changes that had been forced on us. She emphasized how acceptance was ultimately necessary and good for the soul, and didn't seem to feel the changes were a catastrophe, as I did.

Sharon hitched a ride back to the house with us, and I tried her, describing the worst grievances resulting from Aaron's moving in and taking over. She smiled at me and said she'd been expecting this, that the final semester of school was going to be tough for me, but that it was all part of the cycles I'd been describing in my emotional life.

I was horrified, in the full sense of the word. I felt the horror so overwhelmingly that I began planning to drop out of school, though I knew it would ruin my life: I'd have to finish with difficulty, one class at a time while working, and I'd never get to grad school. I tried to think of places I could go if I moved out, but the only person I could think of outside of the group was Marc, and I didn't want to intrude on his space anymore than I'd wanted others intruding on mine.

I woke up with the resignation to a ruined life still strong in my mind, though not quite sure what the real-life parallels would be.

I'm still not.