Good morning everyone,
I haven't turned to you all for support in a long time but this morning I feel I need to because I am feeling very unsettled and vulnerable.
Where do I start?
Well, perhaps with the fact that it will be three years for me in May and, for the first two and a half years, I didn't dream of Paul at all except for once in the very beginning. I guess my subconscious didn't let me dream of Paul because it knew that it would be way too painful for me.
Then, a couple of months ago, I had the first dream. We were in the car driving somewhere. I couldn't hear his voice very clearly but I knew in the dream that it was Paul.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I had this dream where we were lying in bed, hugging like we used to, and I asked him had it been a difficult experience to die and had he wanted me to be closer to him to which he replied that everything had been okay and that he would not have wanted me any closer to him - not climb into bed with him - because he had already begun his own personal journey of leaving this life then and it would have perhaps held him back if I had been so close. In that dream I could actually feel Paul lying in my arms, I stroked his hair and knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was his hair I was stroking, this dream felt really real. It didn't upset me, though. It surprised me.
Then, last night, I had a dream, one of those that felt like it was going on for the whole night, in which I knew that Paul had gone to India for three months and that we had separated before he had left and tomorrow he would come back and it broke my heart to think that we would no longer be together and that perhaps he was already happy in his new life. When I woke up I was so very sad.
And even though I got up, had my shower, drank two cups of coffee, did my morning meditation and put my Console essential oil (do TERRA's oil blend for grief and bereavement) over my heart chakra I am still feeling sad and unsettled and very vulnerable.
And, to my surprise, the thoughts of our last days have come back to me this morning too, the thoughts of our last day at home, the thoughts of our last night in hospital, the memories of what was said and done... I haven't had this in a very long time.
Paul and I were separated twice during our relationship - once for a couple of months in 2011 and again in 2013 - and I kind of remember saying to people back then, "You know, it is so heart-breaking to think that Paul and I will live our separate lives from now on. If he was dead, then I would know that no matter how much we were suited for each other we couldn't be together ever again because he would be gone. But now that he is still alive but decided to no longer be together it is much harder." I don't know how back then I could think that it was much harder. Well, I suppose I can understand what I meant because I knew that Paul and I belonged together and so it felt like we were wasting time by not being together or something like that. But I had to think of this this morning because this is exactly what it felt like in my dream about Paul having gone to India: it felt so heart-breakingly sad that he had moved on into a new life without me.
Isn't all of that interesting?
I also think that perhaps I am quite unsettled at the moment and don't really let it show or admit it even to myself. As I have posted here before, I came over to Germany to be with my parents during COVID-19. That was last March. Nobody knew - or we didn't want to think - that COVID-19 would go on for this long. I remember leaving Ireland and thinking that I would be back by June at the latest. Well, one year later I am still here. I wanted to go back a couple of times but there never seemed to be a good time because there was either a
lockdown here in Germany or at home in Ireland and one thing I said right from the start was: I won't go back into a hard lockdown because being on my own for weeks on end I really don't know how I would cope with that, especially after having been here with my family for a while. So, anyway, I am still as determined as ever that I will go back. But I don't know when. And I feel that the longer I have been away from home the harder it will be for me to go back. Also, I lost my therapy practice room last autumn because the people I had rented it from needed the room for themselves. So I don't know where I would work and believe that for the first couple of weeks, if not months, I would have to work from home which I am dreading and online with my clients as I have done for the last number of months anyway.
I am aware that, when I eventually go back, it will be so hard for me because not only will I have to get used to living alone again and in the house that Paul and I once shared, but I will also have to look for a new therapy practice.
I think at the moment I am afraid of what the future holds and, as so many times before but particularly in the very early stages of my bereavement, I feel that I don't want this future without Paul.
But, and I know this from experience of the past almost three years, these feelings will pass, as feelings always do.
It's freezing here this morning but very sunny and I will go for a walk now. Let's see how I feel after that and I have no doubt that some of you lovely people here will send me some nice words.
Lots of love and thank you for reading,
Mel.
