It’s finally here

This week I’ve been having night terrors.

The kind where you’re not sure if you’re asleep or awake.

The first one followed a dream. A dream where I had to choose between shopping a good friend in for committing a murder that was completely out of character Vs letting someone I know to be of bad merit take the fall.

I spent the whole dream conflicted. Over who deserved to serve.

Then when I ‘woke’ I was alone. And I was scared.

I knew I had to run, to get out. Something bad was coming.

But the pain in my ankle was real.

There was rubble on the floor, then Lego then goodness knows what, scattered around the bed, so I knew I had to go easy.

I turned to my husband for support. The bed was cold. No support, he wasn’t there.

So when I did wake up, the fact that the bed was empty, I was really scared, both of what was waiting, noone to hold my hand, but also of walking to the bathroom across the unknown as I didn’t want to twist my ankles yet again.

The thought of reliving that pain caught in my throat. I couldn’t bare another period of time suspended in waiting.

Waiting to heal, waiting to change, waiting to live.

That’s kind of how today has been.

I’ve lived it.

I was there, but nothing felt quite real.

I started my day at 1am worrying that the food delivery book 2 weeks ago didn’t match the timed moving in slot. As a result I saw in 3am on the sofa but not much after that. I crashed out cold until 20 minutes before the alarm.

When I went out with the dogs at 7 the air was still, not really any difference in temperature to my skin. So it felt the same as everything else. Did I even step out there?

Then I had a stranger come finish a project I thought was going to be me and my kids, but then twisted ankles and heat waves and stuff got in the way. Each time I stepped out, I saw the progress, but not the pain of completing it myself. Was it even real, Just a numb joy of seeing it done.

My mouth turned into word salad with every conversation. With my husband, the workman, my daughter and her dad who was delivering her so far away. I felt disassociated with the whole thing.

One minute she was here and then she was gone.

A guilt of loading the car too quickly that I didn’t savor the moments I had left. A journey I wasn’t taking with her. Into the unknown.

Like a poor TV reception. Just moments in-between pauses, unsure of how much time has passed or what has changed.

I didn’t taste a single thing I ate or drink I drank today, but somehow the minutes rolled by.

And other than the tears that fell as the car rolled away, I felt nothing.

Just a void.

A void I had dreaded since March, I’d crumbled under. My world coming to an end.

But there I sat, just nothing.

It was like sitting on a harbor wall, watching the storm coming, the waves crashing, yet not being swept away.

How could that be?

So I worked on some course work, I scrolled social media, I twisted a tissue until it fell to pieces. A metaphor of how I’d predicted this day.

The numbness kept washing over me to the point I felt drugged. A stupor.

Like when they show fast motion of a world racing by whilst I sit stoic.

I was waiting.

Waiting to hear what your dorm was like.

We’d not had chance to visit. So I waited to hear if it felt like home, if you’d made new friends or a particular stair in the case squeaked. I was waiting to drink it all in, to live vicariously.

A life that I had felt part of for 20 years, and despite your birth those years ago, finally the cord has been cut. I’m out, no longer part of a world that you’ll absorb and live and grow from.

And I’m so excited and I’m so scared.

The conflict is drowning. But I wish only good things for the outcome.

And when you called, I felt at home.

You hadn’t suddenly changed into a stranger.

You shared how at home your room felt with how you’d decorated already. You check in that the bathrooms weren’t something from my previous nightmares and you told me it was good.

And with that I relaxed. I took a breath, a breath I’d been holding all day long.

We’ve survived.

I’ve survived. ….. and then I walked into your empty room.

Fuck that hurts.