One Hundred and Seventy Eight

I had a dream of sorts this morning.

Bunin's been waking me earlier and earlier each morning, by meowing until I get up and feed him.  He woke me before 4 AM this morning, so I after I fed him I went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep. Instead I lay there, wondering how I'd lived so long, known so many people, and was now alone except for a cat.

I never had to make an effort to attract other people.  They always made an effort to attract me.  That’s the problem, of course.

Everyone deserves to be loved, and I tried to love everyone.  I couldn’t, of course.  But I tried, and that's what attracted other people to me.  I made them promises I couldn't keep.

As I lay there, half awake and half asleep, I had something between a daydream and a vision, the way I used to do when I was a child.  I was surrounded by all the people I've attracted, who were attached to me like flies to a spider's web.  I struggled to free myself, and them, but they clung to me.

Whenever I met someone attractive, and sought to know them better, I was always disappointed.  So I struggled to detach myself, to end our relationship without hurting them. And I always failed.

I was always disappointed because I expected too much of them.  I see them more clearly than they see themselves—the faults they won’t admit, and the good of which they’re unaware—because they’re afraid  to know themselves.  How do they manage to stay ignorant?  It must be exhausting.

The struggle to pretend I don't know what I know has exhausted me.  I wish it were over.