Goodnight, My Someone

In the past six months or so, I have taken to completing my days by saying, "Goodnight, my someone." As I tend to do this publicly, any of you who know me have likely heard -- or rather read -- this happen a few times. And although I've explained my motivations for doing this before, I've never done so in as much detail as I will here, nor have I explained where I picked it up in the first place. So in case you were wondering...

I stole "Goodnight, my someone," from Ally McBeal, who in turn got it from The Music Man. It's a song, in fact, from The Music Man, the lyrics of which go as follows:

Goodnight, my someone,

Goodnight, my love,
Sleep tight, my someone,
Sleep tight, my love,
Our star is shining it's brightest light
For goodnight, my love, for goodnight.
Sweet dreams be yours, dear,
If dreams there be
Sweet dreams to carry you close to me.
I wish they may and I wish they might
Now goodnight, my someone, goodnight
True love can be whispered from heart to heart
When lovers are parted they say
But I must depend on a wish and a star
As long as my heart doesn't know who you are.
Sweet dreams be yours dear,
If dreams there be
Sweet dreams to carry you close to me.
I wish they may and I wish they might
Now goodnight, my someone, goodnight.
Goodnight,
Goodnight.

Ally, who I relate to because she's an insane person with a very vivid and active imagination which she is not always in control of and who is a romantic through and through even when she's being cynical, would sing the song each night before bed, and I decided it was a sweet thing to do, so I decided to take the idea and adapt it to my own style (i.e. posting nightly "goodnights" on facebook; though I do on occassion sing it as well).

The way I've explained this practice in the past is that I basically have two sides to me. One side is a hopeless romantic, who draws something sweet and inspirational from the act of wishing goodnight to some "someone" out there who I presumably don't know and haven't met. The other side is an equally hopeless cynic who does not believe there is a "someone" out there, but who believes that allowing my hopeful side to dream may at least have some beneficial effect on me as a person, at the very least helping to prevent me from falling into a deep well of depression from which I may never recover. You can usually tell which side is in control at the time of the "goodnight," by whether the message that accompanies it is hopeful or cynical.

The way I see it, "Goodnight, my someone," is essentially a message in a bottle. Putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea is an act of hope. Arguably a senseless one. You can't really expect someone to find it and respond. But you do it for two reasons: 1) Keeping the faith inside yourself is important, whether your physical actions can have effect or not, and 2) ... You just never really know...

The somewhat crazy thing about all this that not everybody knows is that I kind of have an imaginary "someone," not just to say goodnight to, but that I sometimes conjure in my mind and depend upon to make myself feel better. Its not hard for me to construct a functioning person inside my head, with their own unique looks and personality and backstory. Its what I do; I'm a writer. And I've always believed that character was key. So creating a "someone" ... Well, I suppose everyone has their idea of their someone. My imagination just gives me the added perk of being able to interact with that person inside my head as if they were real.

At some points in my life, my imaginary "someone" may seem just a bit more real and solid to me than at other times. It depends on how much I need that someone at any given time in my life when I don't actually have a real someone to lean on. And yes, somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm aware and somewhat worried about the fact that someday, the world and people of my imagination may become VERY real to me, and I won't be able to find my way back out of my own mind. But I also think that there are worse fates, and never having that someone in real life and having to be sane enough to know it may just be one.

Lastly, I'm a big believer in the good that can come from an outward expression of an inward emotion. There's practically no way that my message in the bottle can ever be read by my someone. I don't make friends with just anyone on facebook, and the few that I have on there... Well, very few if any of them, could be dating options even if the circumstances were right (and they never are). I don't put it out there for any of them really. I put it out there just to be putting it out there. Because I think its better than keeping it all inside. It'll never do me any good just burying it inside myself. At least if I'm putting it out there for others to see, then its outside of me, and whatever more of it there is exists in an outward flow from me out into the world. And that's never going to be a bad thing.

Plus... You just never really know... Right?