This is a Really Real Trauma post.

I had more dreams about my dad last night.

I’m doing some serious processing around his death, how he died, how he lived, etc.

In these dreams he was actually human.

Like, he actually admitted he was fallible.

He admitted that he had fears.

He made a mistake in the dream, and my whole body tensed.

I was waiting for the explosion.

I was waiting for him to find some reason to blame it on me.

But he didn’t.

He laughed it off and said it was a silly mistake.

We’d just start over.

That night he had gone to bed without taking care of his hair.

I have no idea what that means, really,

but he woke up with a head full of frizzy hair that was standing on its end.

He said he’d have to shave it to fix it.

I told him I had shampoo that would help make it curly again.

He said “The only thing more fearful than shaving my head, is using weird shampoo.”

My dad used the same soap and shampoo for as long as I can remember.

When his old style herbal essence (in the green bottle) was being phased out, he bought a case of it, and was very grumpy about switching to their new product.

He used Zest, but only until the bars were half used. Then they ended up somewhere in a drawer to be used in the shower, or something.

Maybe just to fill up drawers, they were everywhere in his house.

When someone around me gets hurt, I laugh.

Not because I’m being an asshole,

not because I think it’s funny,

but because I’m anxious.

It’s a nervous laugh.

I’m waiting for the explosion.

I’m waiting for the yelling and the screaming.

I’m waiting for it to be somehow blamed on me.

He was such an abusive asshole.

And he never realized it.

He treated everyone around him like shit, to the point that I know I’m having a dream because he’s acting human.

Instead of acting like a monster.

But monsters are fictional.

And he was really, really, real.