I woke up this morning curled up next to the headboard of my bed, my right hand entwined in the wrought-iron spirals. I was trying to escape.

As my friend Kelly is fond of saying, nobody cares about your dreams unless they’re in them. None of you, thankfully, were in this dream. But it was a dream that has haunted me since I opened my eyes and started singing Outkast’s “Hey Ya” this morning.

It’s one of those dreams that everytime I blink, the images are there on the backs of my eyelids.

The dream wasn’t even all that traumatic, though emotionally it has done a number on me. I dreamt about a boy that I really had the hots for. We had a weird relationship for the better part of a year before I found out he had a girlfriend. This news decimated me. And for the past year I’ve done my best to get over him.

This boy was unlike most of the men in my past. First of all, he was much younger and hip and adorable. He was one of those rare men in my life who made me feel wholly and completely attractive. I miss having that.

In the dream last night, I saw on the TV news that he had decided to quit whatever job he had and start playing professional football of some sort. The news showed pictures of his wedding and a press conference he held where his pretty petite blonde wife stood by his side. Somehow the wife and I became friends. She told me that her husband was kind of an asshole and I was consumed with guilt over my inabilty to tell her about my past with him. Eventually she wanted me to meet him and I was terrified because I knew the minute I saw him all would be exposed.

I woke up just as she was opening the door for us to walk in and meet him.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why this dream has me so shaken and emotional. Just writing about it right now, I could cry if I allowed myself to. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. Why after all this time does he haunt my dreams? And more importantly, why is affecting me so?

*Confetti by the Lemonheads is a weird sort of comfort song for me. Whenever I wake up from a bad dream, I have to listen to it over and over and over again until I calm down.