Lost

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I dreamed of him last night. For the first time in months and months, I dreamed about him and remembered it.

When I woke up I had the vague feeling that he'd made an appearance and then I couldn't quite remember actually seeing him in the dream. It was like he was there, but only as a presence, just outside of my peripheral vision.

Not a ghost. Not back from the dead. It wasn't a dream where I know he has died and I'm trying to figure out how it is that he's back.

It was a dream in which he was alive and with me, but I couldn't SEE him. Or I don't remember seeing him and this drives me insane. I want desperately to see him again, even it's only a dream Dave.

We were on a group tour of some sort of facility. Maybe a college campus building, I'm not sure. The building was like a maze and the deeper we were led into it the more lost I got, but I knew he'd help us find our way back out again or if not, at least we'd be lost together. Everything would be okay as long as we were together.

At some point, though, the tour disbanded and I suddenly realized Dave was gone, too. I had lost him in the maze and had no idea how to get back to our car or even how to get out of the building. I couldn't even remember where we were in relation to our home.

I was vaguely worried at first, and tried to text him and call him, but my phone was suddenly and inexplicably not my phone. All my contacts were gone, it wouldn't work properly, I didn't know what number to dial, it was malfunctioning and on and on and on, my concern and frustration growing. Hours passed and I could do nothing but continue to try to reach him but I made no progress. The overall feeling was that I would never find my way home again if I couldn't find him. I wasn't terrified so much as worried, lost and confused. At some point I realized that he was never coming back and that's when I woke up.

Later today, I remembered what proceeded that tour on which he disappeared. We'd moved into a little house on the ocean and it was more beautiful, peaceful and calming than I can describe. I was overjoyed to be starting a new life with him by the sea in our perfect little house all filled with light and views of the ocean.

It's not too tough to decode this one. Life is in order, beautiful, comforting and full of loveliness until I lose this man and then I'm lost. Can't find my way back home.

Externally, this isn't a true assessment of my life now. I'm finding my way, slowly but surely. I'm fighting to make a future for myself that both of us would be proud of. My life did not completely disintegrate when he died, it just changed completely and is now a life I never imagined for myself.

But internally, I feel the before and after so acutely, still. The sense that something right, and true and golden was taken away and its absence has left me lost and unmoored. That with him was taken my sense of peace and love and beauty...my home. He was my home.

Not that I don't ever feel or experience peace or beauty or love now, but they are on a much smaller scale than before and feel dulled by the pain of his absence. He loved me so much that it made me feel as though my life had a purpose and truly meant something. He has always been home for me. The home I searched for until I met him and then the home he embodied when he was alive.

I'm missing my home.

It falls on me to provide that for myself now, but that is a task I'm still not convinced I can do without him. His particular love for me isn't something I can ever find a replacement for and don't want to.

What the future brings, I don't know. I have hope and look forward to many things, yes. But my true home is gone. That's a big loss to process, much less heal from. I can imagine that I might one day feel a new sense of home, but it's hard to imagine now.

I don't have a choice though. I have to keep going, hoping that time (and more so, my own hard work) will bring me the healing I so long for. Hoping that I will one day feel at home again, somehow.

If he could, he'd beg me to find the courage to keep hoping for that day. That's enough to keep me going. I want to do right by him. But more than anything I miss feeling the way I did when he was by my side and I haven't wanted to admit it lately, but I still feel lost because he's not.

Wandering or Lost?

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I was talking to my therapist about the ways I've been moving slowly toward starting an honest-to-god dog-walking business and while I was telling her, I noted the flat, bored tone in my voice and I knew she'd take notice too. And she did.

She wanted to know what it was that was keeping me from feeling excited about it all and I thought and thought and thought. All I could dredge up was "I have no idea".

I tried to think of an example of something I was excited about, that lit me up and I couldn't think of anything at the time. I figured (and so did she) that maybe the dog walking thing just wasn't really what I wanted to do.

She asked me if I liked walking dogs.
I do.
She asked me if there was anything I didn't like about it.
Not really.

I still couldn't access any excitement. For that venture or any other.
And I wondered, what DOES make me really excited? What really lights me up?

My lifelong passion has been animals. They light me up.
I love to sing in a choir.
I can draw and paint and feel very much in "the zone" when I'm doing it.
I love to read.

But as a purpose? A reason for living? True drive and passion for a project of some sort? Nothing feels quite right. Nothing really gets me jumping out of bed in the morning ready to tackle a goal.
Did that die with Dave? Will it come back? Do I just wait around for some sort of inspiration?
Why don't I even know what it is I really want to do?

I feel restless and frustrated.
There isn't much I really want to do.
Except to feel the way I used to, when he was alive. Like I had direction.

I'm not suicidal or even deeply depressed. It's getting easier to be alone, overall. I'm sleeping and eating okay and laugh easily again, despite bouts of grief.  I even enjoy quiet nights at home with take out and a movie when I used to dread them. There are many things I'm doing and trying as I learn about myself as a single person. I'm slowly meeting new people and spending time with old friends. I have fun travel plans in the works. I don't feel hopeless, I just feel passionless. Purposeless.

But I think part of it is that I compare too much. I compare myself to people who seem to have satisfying occupations and find myself lacking. I tell myself stories that I'm lacking because I don't trot off to a formal job each day all filled with industry and good work ethic. Or because I'm not going to school to get another degree.

I'm not contributing or busy or industrious enough somehow, and I feel aimless.

There's that story-telling again. The stories I tell myself are almost always wrong or at least misled. I am contributing, it's just not in the way I used to. I used to KILL myself to perform as close to perfectly as I could at my job. Did that make me a better person? Did having that kind of (slightly nutty) drive make me worthy? More worthy than I am now?

I can also understand logically that I'm still healing and that all my energy is going toward that kind of growth so I don't have much left over for a great work ethic and a "go get-em" attitude.
Understanding all of that doesn't completely stop the feelings I've been having though. I still wonder when the hell the purpose will come back and what that purpose will be. I still wonder if my brain will come back online again and if it will always be altered by this trauma. I still wonder if I'll be able to support myself long-term. I still wonder if I'm ever going to feel grounded and certain again.

I know though, that the one certainty is that we can't see around the bend. We can just take the next step we think is right. As I look back on this time, I'm sure I will see how much I grew and how much I actually accomplished and how every little "next right step" took me in the direction I needed to go.

It's just hard to ignore the feeling that I'm missing some integral part of me now. It's like I lost my internal compass and now I'm just aimless, wandering, lost. Again though, the things I tell myself! I'm not "lost".

Lost and wandering are two different things, right?  I'm wandering around as I learn about myself, this new self. I'll find my way. I am finding my way, I'm just too close to see the big picture.

So much easier said than felt, though, huh?