So I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but I've been seeing someone pretty seriously for the last 6 months. One thing that's been truly curious about this phase--and pertinent to the overarching theme of this blog--has been my dreams.
Since K and I started dating, I've had a series of nightmares unlike any before. I spent years having the whole "unprepared for an exam" dream, but these are less recurring and more of a loose narrative that feels so real I wake up genuinely confused. And to make matters worse, I've learned to recognize the dream while having it, which sometimes makes the dream shift into believing that I'm awake and discussing it. So "Inception".
Six months ago, the dream was simple: Amanda was still alive and had just come home from Texas. Somehow nobody had bothered to tell me she was still alive, and my life was just as it was at the time: beginning to date K. In that particular dream, I remember trying to keep them completely unaware of each other. Because how much of a mind-fuck is that?
Then later on, as my relationship with K progressed, that dream slowly began changing to one where I had to explain to Amanda--who at this point would still legally be considered my wife--that I'd fallen in love with someone else. So very "Cast Away".
Last night I had a new version of the dream. Amanda had come home, I told her how my life had changed, about K, about Alastair. And while she wasn't really happy about it, she understood and decided to look for another place to live. She also volunteered to not pursue custody, essentially freeing me to live the life that is unfolding before me. (And of course, to add an extra layer of weirdness to last night's, I had one of those "waking" moments where Amanda was still there.)
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what my brain is trying to tell me: I can move on. Finally I'm not living in the shadow of What Was, but in the glory of What May Be. I don't expect to be done with these dreams any time soon, but it's been wildly fascinating to see how they've changed as my love for K has grown.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
2 years
So today marks 2 years. 2 years ago I told my coworkers that Amanda had leukemia, and that I'd be spending a fair amount of time in Texas. Then a short while later I found out that wouldn't be true. It was a crazy day. I hated every single aspect of it. I've torn it apart in retrospect and still found absolutely nothing redeemable about that day. About that whole trip to Texas.
And yet I really don't have anything poignant to say today. Maybe I'm just exhausted. I've been up late almost every night working on one car or another, and it just hasn't left a lot of time for reflection.
There's a mood and tone that I feel is appropriate for discussing Amanda's death, but I just can't seem to evoke it today, and I don't want to speak from a fabricated emotional state.
I miss Amanda, but I love our son, so she's not really gone.
And yet I really don't have anything poignant to say today. Maybe I'm just exhausted. I've been up late almost every night working on one car or another, and it just hasn't left a lot of time for reflection.
There's a mood and tone that I feel is appropriate for discussing Amanda's death, but I just can't seem to evoke it today, and I don't want to speak from a fabricated emotional state.
I miss Amanda, but I love our son, so she's not really gone.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sasha
Ten years ago, give or take a week, I was getting ready for my sparkly new job one morning when my kitty, Sasha, wheezed. It was terrifying and unsettling and lasted about 15 seconds. Amanda insisted I take her to the vet, but I couldn't risk being late for a job I'd had for less than two weeks.
She got to the vet within the next 48 hours (details are hazy now), and began a 6-month ordeal that would end tragically with her death.
Sasha had a disease called 'lymphangiectasia'. It's not curable, but we didn't know that then. We also had no freaking clue what she had, and neither did the doctors.
Her first trip to the vet, she had an x-ray that revealed a massive pleural effusion (fluid on--not in--the lungs). They pumped one liter of fluid out of her, and she was right as rain for the next month. But you don't remove a liter of fluid from a 13lb cat without worrying.
The next month, they pulled another liter out of her chest, and sent us to a specialist. The specialist removed half a liter (only a week after the previous drain), and still no answers came. We did our own research, growing ever more disheartened and loving our girl as hard as we could.
Then one day the disease got its name. We were told she should never have lasted the first month, let alone the 5 she'd already had. They told us that the drains would eventually cease to be effective, that her lungs would harden and it would become increasingly difficult for her to draw breath, and that we would one day have to put her down.
And then she sprung a leak. Late one night, as we were lying in bed, Sasha jumped up on us, began lunging back and forth, and we both realized the bed was wet and smelled like chicken. She was soaked through with her own fluids. Her body could no longer hold it in.
All manner of emergency medicines and vets were employed, but two weeks later she was gone.
Not an hour after the vet ended Sasha's suffering, I tearily set about removing Sasha's food and water dish to find a pill that she'd rejected the previous day. Amanda completely lost it, convinced that missing that one pill had undone our beautiful, loving girl.
Looking back to 2001, I realize now that losing Sasha was pre-ordained. I had to learn those emotions in order to deal with the fusillade of self-doubt that would creep into my heart after Amanda died. Should she have gone to Texas? Couldn't she have survived indefinitely on blood transfusions? Did the treatments she received there kill her? What about the original doctor who never bothered with blood tests?
And then I remember Sasha. Sasha had an incurable disease. No amount of pills or doctors could prevent her death--they could only delay it.
This month marks 2 years since Amanda died. I cannot believe so much time has passed. I could not have imagined then how relatively normal my life is now, and yet sometimes those tendrils of doubt reach up from the darkness and attempt to consume me. Amanda had an incurable disease. Amanda had an incurable disease. Amanda had an incurable disease.
She got to the vet within the next 48 hours (details are hazy now), and began a 6-month ordeal that would end tragically with her death.
Sasha had a disease called 'lymphangiectasia'. It's not curable, but we didn't know that then. We also had no freaking clue what she had, and neither did the doctors.
Her first trip to the vet, she had an x-ray that revealed a massive pleural effusion (fluid on--not in--the lungs). They pumped one liter of fluid out of her, and she was right as rain for the next month. But you don't remove a liter of fluid from a 13lb cat without worrying.
The next month, they pulled another liter out of her chest, and sent us to a specialist. The specialist removed half a liter (only a week after the previous drain), and still no answers came. We did our own research, growing ever more disheartened and loving our girl as hard as we could.
Then one day the disease got its name. We were told she should never have lasted the first month, let alone the 5 she'd already had. They told us that the drains would eventually cease to be effective, that her lungs would harden and it would become increasingly difficult for her to draw breath, and that we would one day have to put her down.
And then she sprung a leak. Late one night, as we were lying in bed, Sasha jumped up on us, began lunging back and forth, and we both realized the bed was wet and smelled like chicken. She was soaked through with her own fluids. Her body could no longer hold it in.
All manner of emergency medicines and vets were employed, but two weeks later she was gone.
Not an hour after the vet ended Sasha's suffering, I tearily set about removing Sasha's food and water dish to find a pill that she'd rejected the previous day. Amanda completely lost it, convinced that missing that one pill had undone our beautiful, loving girl.
Looking back to 2001, I realize now that losing Sasha was pre-ordained. I had to learn those emotions in order to deal with the fusillade of self-doubt that would creep into my heart after Amanda died. Should she have gone to Texas? Couldn't she have survived indefinitely on blood transfusions? Did the treatments she received there kill her? What about the original doctor who never bothered with blood tests?
And then I remember Sasha. Sasha had an incurable disease. No amount of pills or doctors could prevent her death--they could only delay it.
This month marks 2 years since Amanda died. I cannot believe so much time has passed. I could not have imagined then how relatively normal my life is now, and yet sometimes those tendrils of doubt reach up from the darkness and attempt to consume me. Amanda had an incurable disease. Amanda had an incurable disease. Amanda had an incurable disease.
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