Three Men and a Baby

I should be sleeping, but it's hard. I get so afraid when it's time to go to sleep. I thought today would be different because I had a wonderful dream about Old Guy yesterday. I wrote to him about it. Here is an excerpt: "You saw me and you let me cling to you and stay there and you wrapped a blanket around us. I felt so much better staying next to you like that. Safe. So much better. That was what I needed to set myself right again. I just needed to be next to you."

Now for some reason I am thinking back almost twenty years ago. I had three very special friends. They were my best friends. They used to come over and eat dinner with me, we would go out places to have fun, we would talk, go out singing, one of them even took me to a doctor appointment once when I was too afraid to go by myself. And then there were the 'emergency calls' when I would sometimes lose my marbles at night and one of them would come over to spend the night with me. And you know what? I was a young, attractive, single woman, but these men were really and truly my friends and never tried to take advantage of the situation. They were good people. They were really nice to me and I'm not sure how I would have gotten through that time without them. I miss them now. I lost touch with two of them, but I know they still live on the west coast somewhere last I heard. Thousands of miles away. The third one died very suddenly while we were still all together. I was calling everywhere looking for him to see if he wanted to do something that weekend. I had no idea he was dead in his own bed at the very time that I was searching for him. I didn't know until I got the bad phone call. That was so shocking and horrific for me that I could not attend the funeral. I could only stay home and shake and try to pretend that he was still alive, that it was all a bad dream and that he was still with me somehow. My husband escorted me to my friend's grave several years later. It took me that long to show up to be with him one final time because I could not bear to say goodbye to him.

That was a long time ago and I'm still afraid to go to sleep. I'm beginning to think it will never change and it's making me lose hope. I want Jeff one last time. I want him to come over and sleep in my bed with me. He slept on top of the covers with all of his clothes on. He was very special and I still miss him.

I think I have a new version of three men and a great big cry baby. There is the hub, but that's different because of sex. Then there are The Guys - Old Guy and New Guy, but that's different, too, because they are therapists and they are not going to come over here and crawl in bed with me. So... I think I'll just go have another drink. Maybe I'll get drunk enough to see pink elephants. Or maybe even Jeff. 'Cept he would probably take my beer away and tell me to go sleep it off. He once received a phone call from a bartender and showed up just in time to lift me from the table I was dancing on and take me home and make me go to bed. But at least he came with me and slept on top of the covers with all his clothes on, you know?