Thursday, July 26, 2012

Therapy

Can I tell you about my dream?
Last night, I was awakened numerous times--for good reason, too. Mother Nature decided to unleash a bounty of rain on the downtown core, and the city of Toronto was the grateful recipient of this wash of water.
As I mentioned yesterday, I was on the rooftop reading and drinking wine when the first few drops started falling.
I came down, went inside, had dinner. The rain was off-and-on, picking up intensity, whipping around a bit, but still no noise, no light. No thunder and lightning.
That happened later. 4am later.  I woke to a brightly-illuminated room several times. I heard thunder rumbling.
I slipped in and out of sleep, a couple of times checking my clock-radio (do people still have those?) to make sure it was still getting power. I feel back into a deep sleep, rain notwithstanding.
I dreamed about a condo complex (nothing too out of the ordinary there). Meeting my sister for an early lunch. With our Dad. I didn't know this at first. The restaurant, oddly named "Mike's" was beside the condo complex. It was a cafeteria-style place where you lined up, like the old Movenpick with the passport-type stamps on your bill, and ordered your food from stations. I decided I wanted a bacon-caesar-salad-chicken-wrap. I eventually got to the front of the bacon line. The bacon guy was done cooking bacon for the day, cleaning his pans, putting raw bacon away. I was crestfallen. He was unaffected. I toured around the rest of the food stations eventually settling on cold chicken breast, honey mustard, lettuce, the wrap, with out the salad and bacon I wanted. I located my sister and my dad, sitting at a booth for two, having a grand old time, a great conversation. There was no room for me at the table. We eventally 'converted' the table (in a dreamlike way) and I sat down with my tray to eat. But lunch was over. We'd (I'd) run out of time.  I was silent and disappointed. And I hid my disappointment. My dream ended, or it went somewhere else. I don't know.

Back to my therapy appointment of this week. I was whiny, I was at times, despondent, I was frustrated, I described my utter lethargy in the face of things I have to do. My therapist suggested I get some blood work done. Thyroid, she said? It's what affected your mom. I regarded her coolly. I may have sighed impatiently. Really? That's all you've got? In my most recent conversations with those closest to me, family and what have you, all I get is the Bad News. What has Gone Wrong. Why everything is Not Perfect. My husband, my sister, my mom, work, you name it. And I wonder why I employ 'catastrophic mind' at every turn. Why I sleep nine hours a night. Why I read to escape, read to improve, read to embolden. It's like every step up is taken with lead feet.
I left her office frustrated and feeling incomplete from the session (here it is, one more person who has no possible HOPE of understanding me). I walked down the hall to reception to book another appointment. But what I wanted to do was way, hey, let's finish this. Why'd you give me something else to worry about? Why couldn't you see the fatigue I experience goes well beyond the physical.
But, like my dream, I said nothing.

I left, I went to my niece's birthday dinner.

I've got nothing if not stamina. That thought occurred to me as I drove home today, annoyed at the traffic. Stamina. Yep. I've got it in spades. It should make some of these challenges easier, but sometimes it serves only as a reminder that I need to employ this quality much more than I would like.

Another sad fact about last night/this morning and waking up to the rainstorm: I was convinced it was Saturday morning.
Oh, the crush of disappointment.

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