Is it me or is it me ?

Can I tell you what happened to me yesterday? Ok so I woke up around 1:30 in the afternoon. I know you’re judging me but listen my circadian rhythm was nurtured by alcoholic parents and depression. My self perception is putty but my fucks for your opinion are at an all time low. So on weekends, I sleep in. Sue me!

It always starts the same. I woke up around the time my “roommate” got in from his night job. He works the 12:00 to 12:00 shift at a warehouse and his vocalized inner monologues typically alarm me when he comes in.

“I’m so sick of this shit!” he yelled.

“Well not so good morning to you Mr. Considerate!”

“Oh it’s a GREAT morning chiquita, I love you.”

“Yeah yeah” I said from my room with the door cracked as it tends to be because I simply cannot sleep with a fully closed door. That is for psychos or people who don’t trust the folks they live with. But let’s stay focused.

“I love you too Ricky boo, do you have any snacks for me? I forgot to eat last night.” I said as I rolled out of bed and onto the floor in the kitchen, which is between our rooms.

“You didn’t forget to eat, you chose not to eat and you went to sleep on an empty stomach because you’re lazy and poor hahahaha. But here, Hot Utz and a banana, see I keep you healthy baby. How did you sleep?”

I rolled my eyes and snatched the chips only. “Fine. I keep waking up in the middle of the night with this same fucking dream though. I’m starting to feel like somebody’s trying to tell me something you know.”

“Mami, don’t you get me started on nocturnal narratives and their nasty notations.”

“Girl what hahaha, please, please get started.”

“Well you know my Abuelita, gods rest her perfect soul, was a bruja. She read people’s dreams and I remember overhearing a few stories from her clients that shook me in my boots.”

Ricky was born in Texas, El Paso to be exact. He grew up with a huge family that he absolutely adores but none of them know he’s gay. So he moved to New York with me so we could be gay together. I’m from Seattle. My Mom is an ultra religious reformed lesbian who raised me with her live-in “best friend” who moved out when I was 13 and my Mom was born again ungay, still drunk but now has a suspiciously femme boyfriend named Byron. I talk to her twice a year max.

Ricky and I met online. There was this private facebook where gay kids nationwide would connect on their parents' latest failed attempt at saving us. He and I hit it off by starting separate meme chats making fun of our fellow queers who posted videos of themselves crying with a filter and good lighting. Now, we’ve been living together for five years and he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

“One time, my grandma had a client who couldn’t stop dreaming about getting married in a red dress. Each time, there were different details. Once, she was marrying her childhood pastor who was much older than her and in her words ‘gray and crusty’. Another time, she was left at the altar and ran out to the front steps of the porch and derobed. The last time, she was in the audience looking at herself through tears as she finally kissed the cloudy figure she was marrying and said ‘I do’. My grandmother told her she would do a ritual in her honor and light a white candle. The following week she died in a fucking housefire. I asked my Abuela why the ritual didn’t work. She said it did, she just wanted to honor her spirit because her fate was already written.”

“Yikes, that’s coldblooded!”

“No, that’s wisdom.”

“Well, did any of that shit rub off on you because my dream is weird but I don’t know what to make of it. It’s like I’m fine while it’s happening but when I wake up, I feel gross. Like I did something wrong, you know ?”

“Well spill it, let’s see if brujeria is genetic.”

“It starts off pretty chill, I wake up in this beautiful house next to a beautiful man who’s apparently my husband, yikes. I start my day with coffee and oatmeal which I never finish. Then I ask this kid, ‘are you ready for school?’. I get into a Subaru, drop the kid off at a suburban school where they are the only brown kid then I start to feel a panic. It’s like I feel the panic in my body but I keep going and head to a job where I sit at a big desk completely spaced out and then different things happen. Sometimes I have sex with my secretary in the supply closet, which is my favorite version. Sometimes I’m just staring at a computer screen and as I type, my hands get farther and farther away from me like my arms extend and the computer gets so small I can’t see it anymore. Sometimes I’m in heated debates with some dude with too much gel in his hair. Everytime it ends with me going back to this bed with this fucking man climbing on top of me right before I go to sleep.”

“Hmm, that sounds like my dream life” Ricky says and we laugh.

Wiping tears from laughing so hard, I eventually say “Yes, but it feels like a nightmare to me. Like I said, it’s fine while it’s happening except for the mild panic throughout the dream but then I wake up to the sound of your voice relieved, like I escaped something.”

“I get that.”

There was a loud creak and Ricky’s hairless Bambino, aptly named Kat, walked into the room hopped on the couch and started staring as she typically does.

“Well Carolina, I hate to break it to you but I don’t think it’s just a dream.” Ricky says. Bambino, ever the mischief, was opening a cabinet and grabbing herself a glass.

“I think it’s a warning.” Bambino sat her glass on the counter and sauntered across to the refrigerator. She leapt down to the floor and standing on two legs reached up to open the door. Somehow her glass was right next to her on the floor. I wasn’t quite sure how she did that.

“Warning me of what exactly? Not to succumb to being a breeder?” I started to laugh but it felt like I was laughing in my head not aloud, ya know. Then I noticed Bambino pouring herself a glass of milk. “Bambino girl how the fuck did you?” Then I thought to myself, what is Ricky doing in my house? I couldn't remember us making it offline. Then Bambino said “Warning you to be where you are or be who you are somewhere else.”

“Wait.” I said aloud as Ricky just looked at me with anticipation, totally unbothered by his cat’s sophistication or the newly flickering lights in the kitchen. I remembered my therapist told me that if things stop making sense completely, I just might be dreaming.”

“Ricky?”

“Yeah Caro”

“Are you real?” I asked Ricky and well that was it.

I woke up in a sweat and Michael said I needed to call my therapist to make an appointment. I did, but I wanted to ask your thoughts too. What do you think the dream is telling me ?