I've been thinking a lot about M lately. Not consciously. Not when I'm at work or at the gym or last night when I went out to dinner with friends. When I least expect it, though, he has a way of sneaking into my thoughts. I wake up in the morning with the vague feeling that I was dreaming of him. Or I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I KNOW I had a dream about him, but don't remember the details. Or a song will come on the radio and I'll get kind of melancholy.

Melancholy for weird things. Like hiking and watching for the bark to come off the manzanita trees in the winter. Or remembering the way the sun would come in through the blinds in my apartment. Or having somebody to sleep in with on Sunday mornings. I don't sleep in on Sundays anymore.

Last night I had a dream that wasn't about M, but when I woke up, still remembering the details of this very bizarre dream, it reminded me of him. I dreamed I was put in charge of a competitive boomerang team. Is there even such a thing as a competitive boomerang team? Maybe in Australia? Anyway, I didn't have a choice in the matter, for some reason or another, and it was very important that I coached this team well. Very important. Life or death important. (You know how things can get in the crazy boomerang world.)

The team was a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds. I got myself a copy of "Boomerangs for Dummies" and managed to stay one chapter ahead of the team, practicing at night and coaching the next day. Things like, how to properly hold a boomerang, the angle of your elbow during follow-through, how to change the trajectory of the boomerang throw. Important things that a competitive boomerang squad should know.

The whole time, I was very anxious and almost frantic. I was clearly in over my head. I had no idea what I was doing. And while I was making a grand effort and somehow pulling it off, I felt that at any moment, things would come crashing down around me. And something terrible would happen as a result.

Ever wake up feeling more tired than you were the night before? I did this morning. And the first thing I thought of was him. The anxiety. The frustration. The frantic feeling of studying up on things I knew nothing about in order to fake it. And knowing I would never be good enough to make it work. The last few months with M in a nutshell.

And still....I miss rubbing our hands over the trunks of manzanita trees together after the bark fell off in the winter.