16 hours after the fact, and I still remember the dream. Two snippets, actually.

In the first, I was riding to my brother and his wife's place for a party (in reality, he's not married, he's divorced from his first marriage and is currently engaged). They were living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, right about where my parents' office is.

Cut to inside their home, no one else was there, and I was in a candle-lit room, and it dawned on me that he was married to Amina, ex-love-of-my-life from college. This didn't shock me, because I must have known about it, so I shouldn't have been shocked by it. If it was a shock, it would have happened before, so I wasn't shocked, I thought to myself.

But it was hard looking at the pictures of her on the wall and wondered if any were ones that I had taken of her. I thought, "of course not", and of course none of them were.

In reality, I have only two extant photos of her. My advice is that if you know someone is the love of your life, don't go throwing photos away in a fit of passion. I've done it twice. Regret both. I might have some negatives, though.

In the second snippet, we were just lying in a bed together, in a white room, lit by daylight, with white sheets, just as friends, flirting a little maybe, happy, comfortable, but it was clear that was all. The snippet ended with the room glowing golden.

Maybe I remember the snippets because I couldn't get back to sleep right away. I've been having trouble with my sleep patterns. At one point, slideshowing memories of Amina, I thought, "well, that was all over and done with 10 years ago".

Then I realized late December 1992? That was when it began. In fact, it might have been exactly 10 years ago that we decided to kill our perfect friendship, and engage in a relationship which we would continue to beat to a pulp for a whole fucking 'nother year. Why do people do this to each other? I don't think I've instigated a fight in a relationship since Amina.

"Adaptation":
I know I've written before how I carried Amina around with me for years after she cut contact, until I realized that if I met her now, she would be a completely different person than the one I knew and was in love with. I know I'm a completely different person than she knew.

The chemistry that fueled that love in that friendship didn't exist anymore. We hadn't maintained it. What I still loved about her had nothing to do with the reality of her existing on this planet somewhere now, but what she brought out in me. She had changed my life and how I look at the world. Which I admit in college is not hard to do, but this isn't about that.

And that's how I knew that love was real. And I hate when Hollywood co-opts my ideas. Bastards. What Hollywood didn't co-opt is that 10 years later, you realize it is/was a lot more complex than that.