NOTE: As I mentally deconstruct the demise of my marriage, I am publishing a series of short essays about things that happened, the way I felt, and so on. It's intended to illustrate my mental state at the time, and provide a kind of chronicle of my emotional state, hopefully helping me not make the same mistakes in future relationships.

5/19/03 4:30 PM: I had a dream the other morning.

It was strange, since I've barely dreamt since Yuri and I decided we were over, and she cemented herself into that decision. To be honest with you, the first week and a half I barely slept at all -- the full size bed seemed huge and barren all of a sudden, after having my feet hang off of it and pulling on covers as long as I could remember.

Anyway, so I had this dream. I'd gone to a hotel, to get some space, clear my head or something. It was early evening, where the sun has just dipped below the horizon, but is still pulling the glow down behind it. I was coming out of the hotel office with some extra towels and saw the rear end of Yuri's car, parked right in front of me.

That's the weird part -- I was always told you can't read anything in dreams, but I could clearly see the letters and numbers of Yuri's license plate and recognize them. Moments later, I could see some notes I'd written (my handwriting even looks bad in my dreams) on a notepad in my room.

So I see her car, and I panic. Now I think about it, I actually spend a lot of my time in my dreams caught in some brand of panic. Anyhoo, I rush into my room, which was very unfortunately directly to the right of where her car was parked (the cars were parallel parked, which was weird, since I know she's horrible at parallel parking). I peeked through my window and saw her, wearing this yellow top that's amazing on her, sitting in the driver's seat, looking over something. Hotel bill, maybe, I didn't know.

In my dream, I was stricken with terror. What could I say to her? Was she here with somebody else? Why were we at the same place, away from the house that was driving us both mad? I woke up seconds later, mere minutes before the alarm was slated to go off (my alarm clock is set about a half hour fast, and now sits on the abandoned pedestal where hers used to rest), settled back into my pillow to try and think happier thoughts, and noticed it.

I was starting to forget the way she feels.

I strained my memory to remember the curve of her back under my hand, and it came in hazy and unfocused, like channel 2 does on the TV in the living room. I struggled to recall the taste of her lips, the only lips I've kissed in these last four and a half years. Nothing. She's been gone from my bed just a little over a month, and now the final pieces of her are leaving me. Soon she'll be nothing more than taillights leaving the yard or photos on the website.

An eventuality I never dreamed of.