Since Don died the first half of January that leads up to
his sadiversary has always come with an undercurrent of emotion. With the first
anniversary of his death it was easy to label that undercurrent as grief. No
one gets past that first anniversary unscathed. Then came years two, three and
four and the raw grief got replaced with regrets, sadness and memories. This
year is the Big Five and I suspect it’s the marker where people who haven’t
lost a soulmate think those of us who have should be “over it” by now. And you
know what I say to those people? Mind
your own P's and Q's.
One common factor that comes with the first half of January
each year since Don died is an increase in dreams that have the power to wake
me up. Last night’s episode had me and Don speeding on a busy freeway in a
strange city and making a wrong turn. We pulled off the freeway in an industrial
part of town and stopped on a dirt road next to railroad tracks where day
workers that looked like characters from the Walking Dead were milling around. Don got out of the car to ask for
directions and everyone he asked pointed him on down the narrow road. As he walked
in the direction they pointed, I got concerned he’d get out of view and I got
out of the car to follow. I made it twenty yards away when I remembered the
keys were still in the car but I was afraid the ‘walking dead’ were going to
steal the car as they crept closer to it. I woke up at a point where I was
standing half way between Don and the car and I couldn’t decide what to do.
According to the online Dream Dictionary being lost is
pretty straight forward: “To dream that you are lost suggests that you have
lost your direction in life or that you have lost sight of your goals. You may
be feeling worried and insecure about the path you are taking in life.” It
doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to know that’s spot on. The dictionary didn’t have
a listing for the ‘walking dead’ but a ‘zombie’ seems close enough and this is what
it said about them: “To dream that you are attacked by zombies indicates that
you are feeling overwhelmed by forces beyond your control. You are under
tremendous stress in your waking life. Alternatively, the dream represents your
fears of being helpless and overpowered.” I’ve never dreamed about zombies or the
walking dead before and I’m not a fan of dark genre fiction. Is there a
difference between the two? All I know is when a kid came to the door on
Halloween wearing a creepy zombie mask I wanted to dump the whole dish a candy
in his bag, lock the door up tight behind him and go find a plush kitten or
puppy to hug.
After going to the dream dictionary, I went to a website
that hosts widow/widower blogs---something I rarely do anymore---and right on
the first page were two 5th anniversary posts. Bingo! That’s what I
was hoping to find. One blog author says “sometimes it still sucks” and he was
venting about still getting mail addressed to his spouse and says he’s stilling
dealing with “the IRS fallout” from the death of his first wife---he remarried
in year two. The other 5th anniversary blog writer says she accepts
that she still experiences "intense loss and grief from time to time" but, she
says, that acceptance gives her the strength to engage in life. And engage she
did. She even went swimming with the dolphins but she also saw a grief
counselor around her 4th anniversary. Her bottom line message was
that engaging in life is a choice.
New topic: Do you believe in signs? I broke my Fitbit on the
first day I started my new diet program. The only way I’ve ever been able to
get my eating under control after a long, out-of-control period is to document
everything that goes in my mouth, aiming to keep my calorie count under 1,000.
Doing that on a Fitbit dashboard is wonderfully easy. And I’m addicted to
checking out my sleep patterns every morning. Is the broken Fitbit a sign I should just accept
myself the way I am---a diet and fitness failure? Is it a sign that I love my
gadgets too much? After all, I still have paper and pens in the house that I could
use to track my eating, but who’s going to count my steps and the calories they
burned? All I know for sure is I’d better buy a new Fitbit before the
inauguration because our new president is sure to start a trade war with China.
Boy, don’t I sound like my mother! “Remove the zipper before you put that dress
in the rag bag. If another war comes along we won’t be able to buy them.” Light
bulb moment here: It’s the incoming administration that brought the zombies into
my dream, it wasn't a dream solely triggered by my 5th sadiversary! Why does our subconscious
mind manufacture dreams like that but it won’t allow us to go back to sleep to
see how they end? Did I catch up with Don or go back to the zombies? I guess
the fact that I woke up at all is the answer. LOL ©
