Tomorrow is my friend's 40th birthday party. It's in Manhattan with all my former co-workers from the Sheraton, so this means it's an all night/ overnight event. I've been looking forward to it for about two weeks. It's been my "happy place" to go to when I've been stressed or pissy lately. I have more fun with this crew of friends than anyone in the world. They're all nuts. Crazy, in a good, and self destructive way. There is no such thing as a mellow night out with these guys. We all worked together for years and years and years, working very late and often over night shifts together. You become a pretty tight knit dysfunctional family quickly under those conditions. The sky is the limit when it comes to parties with these guys.
With that said, this means that John will be having the boys overnight Friday without me there. His brother inlaw (Noreen's husband/ perfect father), and his grown niece and nephews will all be there too for back up, but I'm still having a good amount of anxiety about leaving them there. Not even really so much that I feel like something could happen to them, because Noreen's family is amazing with my guys and very protective and careful and doting with them. I'm more anxious about those moments when I'm about to leave and am pulling away from the driveway watching my boys scream and cry in horror at the sight of my abandonment. I think I've only ever left them overnight without me 2 or 3 times, and it was tough on me every time.
Now the nightmare. I had a horrible nightmare about John last night. I don't remember all the details, but I'll describe the best that I can. It started of with John and I trying to navigate through the streets and subways of Manhattan frantically trying to get to his new bar he's opening. He was pulling me by the hand the whole way and kept changing routes, which I didn't understand. At some point, I came to the conclusion that me must be trying to dodge someone that he owes money to, because he was clenching a large roll of money in his other hand. Thousands of dollars worth that he told me was "for work." Each subway terminal we tried to go down was blocked and had detours to use other trains. Finally, we realized that there was a whole city wide dragnet to force John into one specific subway, so that the NYPD could trap and arrest him. He realized it too, but too late. We saw the cops ahead. At this point, he panicked. He ran up to a Navy officer who happened to be there, told him who he was and to arrest him and turn him into the feds... he'd rather deal with the fbi than go back into the NYC criminal justice system. The Navy officer told him he wasn't authorized to do this. He turned icy and let go of my hand. He took out a gun and started towards the policemen waving it around like a crazy person he shot it out blindly into the crowd in the direction of the police, but instead of his targets, the bullets hit my older sister, and a college friend of mine (who, not so coincidentally, was my other sister's "Big Sister" in our sorority). The friend was ok, she took it in her arm. But my sister was shot in the chest, and fell to the gutter. I screamed and grabbed on to her and continued screaming for help. She wound up being ok in the hospital later.... but the dream continued.
I was then in our old apartment in Midtown, and the police showed up to search the entire place for evidence of his crimes. They kept finding wads and wads of money everywhere that I knew nothing about. The dream went on and on from here with so many details and violence that I was genuinely impressed with myself for recalling it all so clearly this morning.
So now, for the perfect storm. 1. Lots of alcohol will be consumed by me. 2. I am sad and anxious about the boy's feelings when I leave them. 3. This horrendous nightmare that I have just two days before this event, that I of course, am analyzing to mean that he is even worse of a criminal and bad person that I already thought.
God give me strength to hold it all together tomorrow, to know that my boys will be in good hands and they'll have fun, and 3, that I actually have fun and don't start freaking out with worry while all my friends are celebrating.
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