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I dreamed about you again last night.

I used to think I didn't dream.  It wasn't until I got to college and took freshman Psych that I learned the opposite was true.  That everyone dreams, some just have no memories of them.  That's how it always was for me until you died.  Now, every so often, I dream of you and while I rarely remember specifics what's left is always the feeling that I was holding you until somehow, you got away.

It was a shitty morning in Cambridge.  It's rainy and dreary here today and I did not want to get out of bed but I pushed myself anyway, pushed myself because I only have a one month membership to Healthworks so I have to enjoy every minute of it.  Pushed myself because now that I'm on Prozac, pushing myself is a possibility again.  Pushed myself because it's what you would have wanted me to do, yet when I got to the gym I still didn't want to be there.  Took the elevator up to the fitness studio instead of walking the three flights of stairs.  Got on the treadmill halfheartedly, instead of putting in real effort on the elliptical.  But by the time Chris Brown finished singing "Party" (the clean version that you would have laughed at me for downloading) I was smiling again.  And by the time Shawn Mendes finished "There's Nothing Holding Me Back" I had picked up the pace.  And by the time I finished listening to Shawn Mendes for the second time in a row, the high had kicked in and I was running. Slowly of course, jogging really, just jogging one minute, walking the next but a calm had settled my spirit and the endorphins were elevating quickly and by the time someone finally got on the treadmill a few machines over from me, I was glowing and sweating and panting and happy as fuck.  And as I walked/jogged for the next 45 minutes, as I watched Jeremy, my virtual trainer telling me to pick up the pace, as I watched the green hillside of British Columbia whiz by me on the treadmill's television monitor, every single cell in my body was singing.  And I wished I had somebody there to share it with.  Wished I could call out to the woman two treadmills away and ask her if she felt this way too. If she hadn't wanted to get her lazy ass out of bed this morning either but now that she was there, running much, much faster and much, much more consistently than I could ever hope to do, wasn't she elated too?  Wasn't she thrilled that she had decided to fight her way through the gloom and doom of a rainy Thursday morning, through her own still lingering depression, and made her way over to Healthworks in spite of it all?

I have a long way to go, babe, I know that.  I'm still digging my way out of the abyss that is clinical depression. But...being home, being back in Cambridge, being back at Healthworks is helping.  I'm healing.  Slowly but surely I'm healing and while I can't imagine living here again, can't imagine living anywhere where memories of our life together don't come at me in a rush the minute I open my front door, for now, for the month of July, it feels really good to be home.