When I finally stopped trying to figure out conditional processing and slipped over into REM last night, it was an odd experience.
I was in Toronto and it seemed familiar but I couldn't really find my bearings. I was somewhere downtown with a backpack and duffle full of my clothes and things and many plastic grocery bags of my comics and books. Carry it all was starting to hurt my arms and hands and I was looking for a bus station that I knew had to be close, but I just couldn't find it.
Then my mom walked up and said, "There you are! We missed the bus, so we'll have to wait for the next one. C'mon!" I was so relieved that someone knew what we were supposed to be doing! We went into the depot to sit and wait for the next bus. I put down all my bags and we were sitting chatting until Mom said the bus would be here soon, so we should go outside and wait. She took off and left me trying to gather up all my stuff. Even though I'd been carrying it all before, it now seemed impossible for one person to carry it all and it took me a long time to get it together.
By the time I did, the room was empty and it wasn't the depot anymore, it was the basement of someone's house. When I went out of the room, there were two kids and their mom, telling me that I had to go home now - not seeming surprised that I was a grownup or that I was carrying all this stuff. I was trying to leave, but it was hard to hold all my bags and I couldn't find the door. I finally found one, but it turned into a window when I opened it and I ended up jumping out of it with all my stuff. Onto a big municipal building lawn, but no bus stop - I was back in undifferentiated downtown again and my mom was gone.
So I was walking through downtown again, but it was getting difficult because the streets were suddenly filled with vendors, like a market, with only a small space to walk and all kinds of people. I kept having to backtrack, because I'd stop for a minute and then realize that I'd walked on without some of my bags. I'd gone back to one stall and asked the vendor if he'd seen the bag I'd left behind. He had it behind his table for me, but when he pulled it out, someone took it and started unpacking it, but I couldn't see them - they were sort of behind me. They pulled out a housecoat and said, "Why do you have this?" And I said, "It was my ex-boyfriend's, I don't know why I still have it!" I managed to turn around and it was the very ex in question.
I think we talked a little bit, but I don't remember the exact conversation. Then he was taking me back to his place - I really wanted to sit down somewhere quiet and rest and figure out what was happening. He carried some of my bags and in the elevator, he wrapped his arm around my waist and said he was going to do his best to get me back and that he should never have let me go. This was the first time I thought about Stuart and I remembered that he was gone and never coming back, but I didn't know why or how. Anyway, I was never scared of my ex and I knew he might wheedle, but he'd take no for a no. So we went into his apartment and he had two little boys! The littlest one looked up at me and said "Are you our mother?" in this very excited voice and I remember feeling shocked, because I know he does have one small son but last I heard he was still with the woman. I said, "No, I'm not."
And then the alarm went off.
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