Scattered somewhere in the middle of my dreams last night I saw a young woman who was, as near as I could tell, a recent romantic interest. I don’t recall what she looked like, only that we were going to have sex, maybe for the second time, and I’d asked her to go find a condom.
        God, I was horny!
        We later met in a large tent with a bed tucked into one corner. She laid down on her side, clothes still on, and I was sitting on the floor leaning into her with my arms on her knees. We started to talk. She expressed fears about our relationship. Did it have a future? I looked into her eyes and found myself thinking what it would mean to start a future with her and as my mind played at that future I found myself falling in love. I stopped myself. I don’t want that! But what didn’t I want it, something I have so easily fallen into with so many women before her?
        I don’t like what it’s doing to me! I thought.
        From there my dream went off in another random direction, as dreams are apt to do, but I was left with a realization: since I’ve struggled with abandonment fears my entire life they were inextricably linked to my personal experience of “being in love”. For me, “being in love”, by default, means two things: first, I’m actively imagining a future with someone and second, I’m ripping that imagined future apart to ensure there are no gaps I might fall that might result in me being alone again. Those two forces are so tightly bound that they generate an atomic amount of emotional energy, which explains why my heart’s never been half-in and my relationships have generally been, well, fucking intense.
        That’s it. That’s a snapshot of a few moments of a dream where I saw just how entangled my sense of “feeling in love” is with my fear of abandonment. Until now I’d always assumed the latter was simply a dark passenger, tagging along for a ride it wasn’t welcome on, a hitch hiker that could be dropped off at some rest stop and never let in the vehicle again.
        Maybe I was wrong.