One of The Ones to Be Grateful For

Today is one of those days. You know, those days -- the ones that, even though you're awake, feel like some sort of dream, or maybe an out of body experience where you're watching life happen to yourself without actually feeling any of it, like it's not even you experiencing things, like it's someone else.

My therapist calls it "disassociation" and says that it's my mind distancing itself from stressful events or feelings that might otherwise be overwhelming. Its a defense mechanism, she says, so that I can keep functioning through whatever life throws at me. Personally, I think that explanation makes me sound crazy, and much more fragile than I am.

Some things just take more time for a mind to process, and during that delay I think we associate what's happening to the first similar thing we can find in our memories. For those of us who are part of the modern world, the most prevalent sensory and informational input we get is from a television screen or computer monitor. And the majority of that is either fiction, or non-fiction that is so sensationalized that it comes across as fiction.

So it's not that we're "disassociating." Quite the opposite. Its that we're trying so hard to immediately figure out how to think, feel, or react to a situation that our minds are misassociating with things that we know to be fake. We think, subconsciously as well as consciously, "this stuff happens on TV, or in movies, not in real life." Thus, whatever is going on ends up feeling surrealistic -- like it isn't happening to you because these things "don't happen to real people."

Now, I'm not saying that people don't ever truly disassociate. I fully admit to doing it sometimes. I did it when I was at my worst, refusing to admit that I was hurting, throwing myself into work and school. I did it as a new mom, when diapers, spit up, throw up, etc., etc., were too disgusting to handle. I do it now, at work, when the stress and frustration gets to be overwhelming. But those times, I go numb. I become robotic; completely and totally unfeeling and blind to anything but the task at hand. It doesn't feel surrealistic. It doesn't feel like anything at all.

So today, I'm not disassociating. I feel okay. It's just that... Things just don't feel right. They don't feel real.

This morning, on my way to work, I got a call from my ex husband telling me that he's been the victim of identity theft, and that I should keep an eye on the joint bank account we still have. Great. Lovely. So I have to go, at some point, and close it just to be safe. And that wasn't even how the day started.

My wake up call this morning, instead of my normal 6:30am alarm, was a 5-something am phone call from my boyfriend to let me know that his grandfather had passed away. It wasn't an unexpected thing. But that doesn't make it any easier on anyone involved. I don't think its all really hit him yet... But it will eventually. In the mean time, my heart is breaking for him.

I remember how hard it was on me when my great grandmother died... She'd been ill for a long time, and each time I saw her, she was less and less of the woman I knew. She was one of the strongest, most alive, feisty and fun loving people I've ever known. But the last few times I saw her, she wasn't any of those things. She was wasting away, hooked up to more and more tubes and machines each time. The number of pill bottles in her bathroom soon overflowed the medicine cabinet, and lined the sink and even the top of the toilet tank. Certain bottles took up residence by her bed, or by her recliner in the living room.

On my last visit, the entire house had become a sick room, and the woman I'd loved and admired was a mere shadow of her former self. She couldn't even sit up on her own, let alone stand at the stove teaching me how to cook like she always had.

Between her medications and the dementia that had set in, she could barely recognize her family. We even had to have my dad's wife step outside because my great grandmother couldn't remember who she was, and kept getting scared about "the strange woman in my house." In the fog she was in, my father had to keep reminding her who he was because she kept confusing him with my uncle and my grandfather.

But she knew me. She called me by name, and grasped my hand with more strength than she should have been able to muster.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" she asked, her voice weak, but seemingly determined.
"Yes Nanny," I replied. I was fifteen, and did have one... Kind of.
"You love him?" she asked, a glimmer of hope slipping into her voice.
"Yes Nanny," I said. I thought I did, given how much fifteen year olds know about love.
"You're going to get married?" she asked, hope lighting her eyes, and color coming back into her face.

Who was I to deny her that hope? Who was I to deny her a last moment of happiness? What would it hurt to tell her what she wanted to hear?

"Yes Nanny," I lied.
"Good," she said. A soft smile spread across her face as her hand slipped from mine and she fell back into a state halfway between consciousness and unconsciousness.

My conversation with her ended up being the last conversation she had with anyone. She never quite regained lucidity again after that. And a day later, as I was on the plane home, she passed away peacefully after months of battling to hold on to life's last threads. It was as if she was waiting for me... Waiting to see that I had a bright future, before she felt it was okay to let go.

When we got the call that she'd passed away, I cried like a baby in my father's arms. But my tears weren't for her. She was in a better place, and she'd gone there happy. She wasn't suffering anymore, and I was glad for that. But me... I was stuck here, without her. My tears were for me; my hurt, my loss, my emptiness.

She was everything I'd always wanted to be; one of only two people I ever admired growing up. And I still miss her. I always will.

There was nothing that anyone could say or do to help me feel better. All the I'm sorries, and the I know how you feels did nothing but annoy me. Only the friends who really did know how I felt were honest enough to admit that there was nothing they could say. They were the ones that would hug me. They were the ones that would ask to hear about her. They were the ones that would share stories about the loved ones they'd lost. They were the ones that would cry with me. They were the ones that helped; that made me feel less alone. They were the ones I was grateful for.

I just hope that I can be that... One of the ones that help... One of the ones to be grateful for.