So that's why I journal
Little warning for mentions of death.
I've been having some really vivid dreams lately. This used to be somewhat common for me, though they almost always skewed toward the nightmare end of things. Not to mention the sleep paralysis, exploding head syndrome, the scribble people...but anyway, this has largely come to an end, and I'm super glad for that.
The downside is I have fewer dreams, which I guess is Fine but! I actually enjoy dreams when they aren't bad! I've had some really memorable ones and have pinpointed some familiar places, which is cool. But I see them less often now.
This week, though...there's been more than usual. And in one of them, my dead friend showed up. This also isn't that unusual; I've had dreams about him before, both Before and After.
But this time was different, because in the dream, I knew he was dead, and him suddenly being Not was so startling. I hugged him so tightly and told him "I have to find my journal and show you all the things that have happened since you've been gone." I still haven't figured out the whole lucid dreaming thing (if it can even be figured out) so I couldn't just summon the journal sadly, and instead I had this regretful feeling of wishing I'd had my journal then, to catch him up on the last year and a half.
I know, of course, that he's dead and there's nothing that can be done about that. Every day widens a gap that was already impossible to cross from the minute he died. But I also know that I'm still afraid of forgetting things. I still feel a deep shame thinking about most of 2020, because I barely remember that year. I couldn't remember from one day to the next what I'd done, what I'd eaten...
And so I journal. I'm not as consistent as I used to be, but I think the dreams reaffirm the "why" that I've been pondering the last few months. Why do it? Why write these things down, especially if no one else will read them?
Well, I read them. Not frequently, but I do go back and read them. I can reflect on where I was mentally at the time, consider how I am now, and decide how to make things better. I can also just read about things that have happened, because I write those down too. I've saved a four-leaf clover my partner found in one of them, even.
My journal is an easy-access extension of a memory bank that frequently can't be opened or read. (I'm bad at recall, basically.) It grounds me in the world when I would otherwise feel like vapor. And, you know, it's therapeutic sometimes to just write out my anger or anxiety.
I guess I owe my friend some thanks for helping me find that "why" again, even if he'll never receive it. Thanks, bud. You still deserve the world.