October 13, 2005

• I’m asleep and dreaming, but, unlike some of you, I don’t have the gift of knowing inside my dream that its a dream.  It’s real to me.

  
  

  I see Bob, lying over on the couch, and I think he’s asleep. On approaching him, I realize he looks all wrong; his face is slack, mouth agape, purple splotches on his skin…”Oh, that’s right, he’s dead!”, I think, “The doctors couldn’t save him………”

  
  

  I look around the room, and notice my daughter sitting in a chair, and I walk over to her.  Her eyes are vacant, and I realize her head is split open, from ear to ear, pink and white stuff trying to ooze out of the slit.  I quickly grab her head in my hands and push her skull back together, I find some ribbon and tie the pieces of her head with it, making a bow right above her eyes.  She’s still alive, and I need to get her help. I’m panicing, “Not her, too! Not her, too!”. 

  
  

  I run up to the side of this tall building………..it’s the hospital, it’s the Emergency room door I ran in the night Bob died, only…..the door is not there, or it won’t open, or it’s hidden from me……..”WHERE is the DOOR??”  I run around and around the building, exhausting myself, trying to find that door, any door…..  My daughter is sitting on the curb, waiting, holding her head together for me.

  
  

  Where’s the damned door?!?  I look up, and I can see doctors inside, on the next floor, and they’re just standing around, talking to each other, oblivious to me down on the sidewalk……..”HEY!!!”  I shout, “Where’s the door?!”, “Come help me with my daughter!!!”, I try jumping, I try wedging my fingers in the wall to climb up.  I try to find things to throw at the window………..I look over to my daughter, and she has lain herself down on the sidewalk, and I see stuff is leaking out of her broken skull………

  
  

  I’m so frustrated!  I start screaming and crying and I wake myself up.

  
  

  All of those emotions I keep so neatly tucked away during my waking hours have snuck out on me, they are dancing around the room, I can’t stuff them all back down, put them in their cubby holes, hide them in thier closets…..  My face and pillow are wet with tears, my teeth ache from clenching my jaw, I’m sweaty from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and I’m sad………..so sad,  I can’t stop the tears…….I feel so out of control, God! I hate feeling like this!!

  
  

  I get up and go into the bathroom, turn on the light, sit on the toilet, and try to pull myself together.  But the dam is down, the emotions are pouring out of me and over me, beating me up, reminding me of how much a person can hurt, ……how much I hurt.  I weep for a long, long time.  I tell myself, “You were dreaming, you were dreaming!” over and over, until my mind finally starts to believe it, and my heart starts to slow down, and I begin to catch my breath.  The waves of emotion begin to abate, I quickly push them down, down, down…..

  
  

  Then I weep some more, just because.  Just because I bottle it up so much.  There’s never really a convenient time to have a good cry, is there?  Right now, I’m raw, and emotional, and I’m awake, and I won’t bother anyone……..so I let the tears flow, leak out of my eyes,…… I didn’t know I had so many backed up in there, where are they coming from?  My throat hurts, my sinuses feel like balloons, my eyes are puffy……….but I’m finally done, and man, am I ever tired.  I crawl back into bed, it’s 3:30 in the morning.  I fall deep, deep asleep.

  
  

  At 5:00, the alarm goes off, time for Rick to get up for work.  He tries to talk to me, I’m under water, my body is exhausted, I can’t wake up.  “Are you OK?  Do you feel OK?” he asks me, concerned little wrinkle in his forehead.  I smile and kiss him.  “You go back to sleep for a bit, I’ll wake you up when I’m leaving”, and then he says, “Wake up, I’ve gotta go”…….Wait, I didn’t even have time to fall back to sleep, but I look at the clock, which says 5:55, ……….that’s weird………

  
  

  Today I am exhausted, yawning, I need to inspect 10 properties, but after the 5th one, realizing my brain is just not present in my body, I find myself getting off the freeway at my home exit, and the car parks itself without even asking me, and I’m gonna go take a nap, try to find myself, try to wake up less raw….  Why are deep emotions so tiring, so draining, so numbing?  Why are they so solitary?

  • 4:43 pm
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