Well, I’m here writing in the middle of the night. Actually it’s now morning but these thoughts woke me from a weird dream in the middle of the night and I finally realized about an hour and a half later that I might as well get up and put it on paper to see if it made any sense at all.
I need to explain some about how I figure this dream relates to what’s happening to me at this time. First, I am going through some strange emotions that I’m not used to and I’m trying to make sense of them, sort them and either get rid of them or put them to some use. I had a really quiet week this past week. That was partly because it was my post chemo week and I was too sick to do anything, eat anything or go anywhere as I’m sure you saw from my last musings. The other thing that made it quiet is that I didn’t hear from anybody. Now, I shouldn’t say it that way because for sure my daughter checks in several times a day with “how are you?”, “do you need anything?” “do you need to go out? go anywhere?”. My sons are far away, one in northern Ontario and one in Alberta and they call at least two to three times a week. All this does my heart good for sure. What I meant by not hearing from anybody is anybody who isn’t my family. What was strange is that I’m feeling sorry for myself in that “nobody cares” “don’t know where all my friends have gone” kind of feeling.
This is where my weird dream comes in. I dreamt that I was back in 1988 when my husband left and moved up north with his girlfriend that he had met only six weeks previously, at least that’s what he told me. It was most probably the worst time of my entire life. Those that have lived it know, those that haven’t, just don’t. It’s not just that they leave, you don’t just feel like you lost your husband, you feel like you are losing your life. Actually, this story is so complicated and unusual that I think I will probably write a book at some point because I’m dying to tell the story. Anyway, when he moved out, he moved eight hours away and that complicated life in so many ways. My children were young teenagers so they were angry – so angry. He hadn’t just left me, he left them and wasn’t available to them. It was an angry, sad house I was living in. when he returned several weeks later for a visit, he brought her with him and went to each of our good friends’ houses to introduce her to them. I was in a very unhealthy state, not handling any of this well and I took it as a total slap in the face. The best way I know how to describe it is to say that I felt that it was like looking down from up above and someone reached down and plucked me out of our life and put her down in my place. She was sitting in the same seats in my friends’ houses, eating the same food I would have been eating and it was so very painful.
Now I felt that I hadn’t just lost my husband, I lost my whole social circle as well. I don’t know at that time if they didn’t call because they didn’t know how I would react, if they didn’t know what to say or if I was not much fun to be talking with. I felt that way for a long time, that he and his girlfriend were much more fun and a couple so they fit in and I didn’t fit in any way anymore. We had a large social circle that was all couples and families and that part of my life disappeared instantly.
So why this dream at this time and how does it fit into my life at the moment? As I say, I didn’t hear from anyone this past week and I realized after pondering on it some that it was the same feeling that I had back then. I worked to figure out how they were similar and what I’ve come up with is twofold. One, I think some of my friends don’t know how to deal with this (the cancer), or me (I’m not quite myself a good part of the time) and put that together with the fact that everyone lives busy lives, they don’t call. Secondly, I’m in the same dark place feeling like I don’t fit and that everyone else is having a good time and I can’t do that at the moment. Now I realize that this may sound ridiculous to some, but feelings are feelings.
I am trained in how to take these feelings and turn them around, normalize them and move forward.
Instead, I am wallowing in them. Maybe that’s what I need to do at the moment.
At the time that I was trying to adjust to my new life when he left, I didn’t feel that it was affecting my job but apparently it was – so much more than I thought. My job was one that took great energy, enthusiasm, socializing and being upbeat and positive. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing a great job at even faking it. My boss at the time called me into his office and said, “do you like your job?” I said yes, of course. He then asked, “do you want to keep your job?”. Yes again. Then, he says, “then give your head a shake and do your job!”. So that’s what I did. I did it with help for sure, but I did it.
So I know I have all the tools for this and it’s time to “give my head a shake”. I know I can’t change the process and all that I am going to go through going forward but I can do the things I know to do to make it more tolerable and positive. So I’m going to find my shine and do what I need to do get through – more about that later. I’m going back to bed for awhile.
