Dreaming of my friend CD

I slept with my clothes on, on the top of my bed, for the first time in over a year. I did this because conversation after a reiki session with a friend ended up going so late I told him I didn't want him driving home in his exhausted state. So we stretched out on my tempurpedic bed, and within a few minutes I drifted off to sleep.

I slept fairly well, but not as soundly as normal, and awakened after seven hours of sleep to a beautiful blue sky. When I awakened, I was smiling, because I dreamed, and in my dream, CD called me.

I miss him. Does he miss me, I wonder? I accept the choice he made, just as I have come to accept my sister's choice. Both have cut me out of their lives: She, out of displeasure at my trying to save her life, he, out of fear of losing his life. The life he'd built with his wife and partner. I loved him as a friend, as a mentor, as an extraordinary man. The love and acceptance I gave him opened things in him, and his wife noticed. He took up his music again, finished his novel, stopped biting his nails. He found a sensual outlet in a sexless marriage, and in his acceptance of his masculine desires, in reclaiming his sexual power, he became the lean, handsome, charming man of 20 years previous.

She asked if he was having an affair, and he answered, honestly, that he was not. But emotionally, he was unfaithful. He was unfaithful because he felt there was something wrong in loving two women at the same time. I encouraged him to tell his wife about our friendship, and he'd said that he would, but he did not. The tension within him was unbearable. I knew that if he did not act consciously, that his subconscious would bring things to a head. He was afraid. I tried to coach him about his inaction, but his fear overwhelmed him.

And one day he did something stupid, something unrelated to me, that brought it all to a head. And in the aftermath of the explosion, he bowed to his wife's demands. He allowed himself to be castrated again. He emailed to tell me that his relationship with me was hurting his wife and that he would not be able to remain in contact with me. And so there has been silence.

Elie Weisel wrote in his book, Gates of the Forest, that when a friend denies you, it is worse than death. He was so right.

I dreamed of CD, that we talked, and I awakened with a feeling of happiness and aliveness. The happiness faded a bit, but my vitality, as ever, remains. Just as the silence remains. I love him still. I always will. And I accept that. I accept that just as I accept his choice to deny me. One day, perhaps, even I'll find a way to be happy about it.