Last Night I Dreamed...

Last night I dreamed that, after ten years of not being "out" to my father, I decided that I finally needed to be, for my own personal peace of mind.

So in this dream, I was at my parents' house and my dad and I were disagreeing on something--I don't remember what, but it was one of those things where he was telling me I didn't know how I felt about it because I was too young to understand it (I'm twenty-fucking-five thank you)--and from there it went on to a heated debate on marriage equality and other LGBTQIA+ issues. And I don't remember anything that was said, except that my dad was lying on the couch making incredibly dismissive comments about all of my feelings and opinions, and I finally stood over him and told him that I'm bisexual. In my head, I remember thinking, I need to get it off my chest. Whatever happens now, whether he disowns me or hates me or whatever, I need to finally be able to be out, to not be on my guard all the time. So I told him. I half-yelled, "I'm bisexual!" right to his face.

And he hit me. I had opened my mouth to say that even if he didn't like it he needed to accept it this time (in real life I've come out before and he managed to suppress the memory somehow), but I had time only to open my mouth and he backhanded me and I could taste blood. And then he hit me again. I felt a tooth come loose.

My mom was on the computer in her bathrobe a few feet away, I remember, and while dad and I had been arguing she had been doing her best to ignore us, but at this she rose, anger on fire, marching toward my dad with her hand raised ready to hit him for hitting me. I put out a shaky arm to stop her. I felt surprisingly calm--like this was okay, like it was necessary. On some level I felt that whatever physical damage my dad would do to me, he would at least finally let it sink in that I'm bisexual and I wouldn't have to hide it. Mom moved to push my arm out of the way and started screaming at my dad.

I stood up and hugged her and begged her to let me handle it. I told her that it was okay, that whatever he did I was okay with it, I just didn't want anything to go on between them, didn't want her to hit him, didn't want him to hit her back. Over and over I told her, it's okay, just please let me handle this, it's something I need to do on my own, I love you, just let me take care of it. Finally she looked at me, teary-eyed, and nodded and went back to her desk.

I turned to my dad and finally said what I had wanted to say: "I don't care if you don't like it. I knew you wouldn't. But you have to deal with it one way or the other--"

And then he punched me. A tooth broke. More blood in my mouth.

I don't remember anything after that except being on a train with someone I knew and liked (I don't know for the life of me who it was, or whether it was even someone I know in real life) to go to some hotel for a few days to get away from everything while I recovered physically and emotionally.

It was the weirdest thing. My dad is....Well, he looks and sometimes acts like a violent type of person, but he's not. He's never hit my mother and outside of spankings when I was little I don't remember him ever hitting me, except a light slap on the cheek once when I was 15 and told him to fuck off for who-knows-what-reason.

And in real life, I still have no desire to come out. My attempts to do so in the past...well, that makes for a very long story that I don't feel like telling here right now. They were unpleasant, and I avoid any talk that my dad might hear that might reveal my sexual orientation by mistake. I DO want to be out to everyone, and sometimes I think it would be worth a short-term major blowout just to have it done with, but it's not something I actually intend to do because I don't think the potential long-term consequences would be worth it.

The dream was just unbelievable enough to be incredibly jarring, with just enough of real-life influences to make it scary.

**

I also had one of my tornado dreams again last night. So that was a thing. Actually, two tornado dreams, because I think when the friend and I were on the way to the train station in the dream I just listed, there was a tornado a few miles behind us that we could see in the rear-view mirror, and another one way ahead of us that was going a different direction so we wouldn't hit it. I was weirdly calm about those--scared, but certain that I would be okay. But before that I had also had a dream that I was somewhere with a few friends and my husband and suddenly there was a massive tornado headed right for us and several smaller tornadoes popping up around us and I was hiding in the basement of this building with a couple friends crying and waiting for it to be over.

I have a lot of tornado dreams. Better than the spider dreams, I guess. Marginally.