Life, I guess.
Well, I finished up my second semester of grad school. I took a final yesterday.
Next up is getting back onto that proposal for my thesis, and soon we shall start more research.
There are certain aspects of my life about which I am very pleased.
There are other aspects of my life in which things are going quite badly. I have been having nightmares almost every night for the past month, especially since I went to the Relay for Life. (I wrote briefly about my experience with that particular Relay for Life here.)
Against my better judgment, I went to the Relay, but I went because a friend wanted me to go. Then, as the night progressed (and I had cried a couple times), he began to act like he wanted nothing to do with me, avoiding me, and being an all around shitty friend. Fortunately, I had other friends there (some of whom I had just met) to help me. I guess I was very upset, because I go to great lengths for my friends, as they mean the world to me.
It was such a mistake to go there. Not only did it reopen the grieving process, but I lost progress on my grieving process. I went through all of the stages of grief that night, except relief. On that night at the Relay, I relived the worst day of my life. When I was a kid, my brother peed on me, beat me up, emotionally abused me and went through several unhealthy, overprotective phases. Sometimes all 3 of my brothers would gang up to pick on me or emotionally torture me.
Yet the day that I lost my aunt was the worst day of my life. Worse than any torture my brother(s) put me through.
Summer 2006 was a very rough time for me. Shortly after my aunt died I had occasional dreams about my aunt. In each one my hopes were crushed. In one particularly memorable dream, she was alive and there was a promising treatment for her. Then I flashed back through her cancer relapse and came to the agonizing realization that it was a dream. It's hard to express how painful this dream was, but it was just awful, and the feeling lingered.
Here is something from a LiveJournal entry from 2006 about that dream: "One dream, we were at an event like a wedding or something. She was sitting by my mom. She was still a little sick, but I was sitting there thinking of all the possiblities and chances, how she was doing so much better than I had last saw her. New treatment possiblities. Everything. Then. Slowly, throughout the dream, I became lucid, and reminded myself that she was dead, remembering watching her die, holding her, picking up her body and putting it on the gurney to be wheeled away, and going to the funeral."
In another dream, my aunt was alive and well. Again, I came to the harsh realization that it was not real. No matter how much I hoped, reality took hold. A painful reality. Eventually, these realizations (in my dreams) became slightly less painful.
Sometime within the past year, Cathy would show up in my dreams more frequently. I somehow developed the technique of deluding myself after I would remember that she's actually dead. What happy delusions! I got to spend time with my loved one again. (I have had frequent nightmares since childhood, so I cherish the happy moments in my dreams.)
Since the Relay for Life, Cathy stopped showing up in my dreams at all, and it's been pretty much nothing but nightmares.
You aren't supposed to step backward, so why have I? And I can't let go. This woman was like a mother to me. She lived a block away from me for the first 19 years of my life.
Fuck, I miss her. It hurts.
Next up is getting back onto that proposal for my thesis, and soon we shall start more research.
There are certain aspects of my life about which I am very pleased.
There are other aspects of my life in which things are going quite badly. I have been having nightmares almost every night for the past month, especially since I went to the Relay for Life. (I wrote briefly about my experience with that particular Relay for Life here.)
Against my better judgment, I went to the Relay, but I went because a friend wanted me to go. Then, as the night progressed (and I had cried a couple times), he began to act like he wanted nothing to do with me, avoiding me, and being an all around shitty friend. Fortunately, I had other friends there (some of whom I had just met) to help me. I guess I was very upset, because I go to great lengths for my friends, as they mean the world to me.
It was such a mistake to go there. Not only did it reopen the grieving process, but I lost progress on my grieving process. I went through all of the stages of grief that night, except relief. On that night at the Relay, I relived the worst day of my life. When I was a kid, my brother peed on me, beat me up, emotionally abused me and went through several unhealthy, overprotective phases. Sometimes all 3 of my brothers would gang up to pick on me or emotionally torture me.
Yet the day that I lost my aunt was the worst day of my life. Worse than any torture my brother(s) put me through.
Summer 2006 was a very rough time for me. Shortly after my aunt died I had occasional dreams about my aunt. In each one my hopes were crushed. In one particularly memorable dream, she was alive and there was a promising treatment for her. Then I flashed back through her cancer relapse and came to the agonizing realization that it was a dream. It's hard to express how painful this dream was, but it was just awful, and the feeling lingered.
Here is something from a LiveJournal entry from 2006 about that dream: "One dream, we were at an event like a wedding or something. She was sitting by my mom. She was still a little sick, but I was sitting there thinking of all the possiblities and chances, how she was doing so much better than I had last saw her. New treatment possiblities. Everything. Then. Slowly, throughout the dream, I became lucid, and reminded myself that she was dead, remembering watching her die, holding her, picking up her body and putting it on the gurney to be wheeled away, and going to the funeral."
In another dream, my aunt was alive and well. Again, I came to the harsh realization that it was not real. No matter how much I hoped, reality took hold. A painful reality. Eventually, these realizations (in my dreams) became slightly less painful.
Sometime within the past year, Cathy would show up in my dreams more frequently. I somehow developed the technique of deluding myself after I would remember that she's actually dead. What happy delusions! I got to spend time with my loved one again. (I have had frequent nightmares since childhood, so I cherish the happy moments in my dreams.)
Since the Relay for Life, Cathy stopped showing up in my dreams at all, and it's been pretty much nothing but nightmares.
You aren't supposed to step backward, so why have I? And I can't let go. This woman was like a mother to me. She lived a block away from me for the first 19 years of my life.
Fuck, I miss her. It hurts.