Tag: divorce

Dream vs. Reality

My dad passed away at age 92 on September 16, 2013.

On September 28, 2016, I wrote this in my dream journal:

The other night, I dreamt I ran into Dad. In the dream, I had just gotten out of class or something — I was exiting a building with a lot of people. I almost walked right past him, but glanced back to see him standing against the doorway, waiting for me.

“Dad! When did you get here?!” I asked.

He looked professorial in his gray suit and tie. His crewcut reminded me how he looked in his forties. I asked if he was hungry. He said yes.

The dream continued someplace else…maybe my place. I was making a BLT. He was no longer in my purview. I ate my sandwich and forgot, or neglected, to make something for him.

Then he reappeared. I felt terribly guilty for not making him some food and only thinking of myself. I asked if he was still hungry. His answer was unclear, and then the dream ended.

Earlier that day, I’d been thinking about Dad. I had thought about how his love and affection had dissipated around the time I reached puberty. His pulling away felt sudden. I was 13.

I’d always thought it had something to do with me, with my age, that he was uncomfortable with it. But this day–before the dream–I had realized that his emotional waning happened to coincide with his planning a divorce from my mom. It had nothing to do with my age or the changes I was experiencing. Separation and divorce were likely first and foremost on his mind.

As in the dream, I had only thought of myself and my needs. I hadn’t considered what was going on for him at the time.

An exercise to clear/heal the 5th chakra

I’ve had chronic neck pain and stiffness for years. I’ve thrown everything at it, but, so far, not the kitchen sink. That could make it worse.

Here’s an exercise that I read in a book and decided to try. It suggests going back in your mind to troubling incidents, and finally saying what you wish you could have said. It’s a very healing process.

What I wish I had been able to say…

…and maybe did say when I was an infant and my mother had postpartum and general depression: Where’s my mommy? Why is no one hearing me? Mommy, can’t you hear me? I need you! I’m hungry and I need to be held! I need your touch! I need to feel connected to you. I need to feel safe. I don’t feel safe. I feel cold. I need your warmth. Mommy, please come. Show me that you hear me. Show me that you care. Where are you? I need to see your eyes. I need to feel you close to me! Ma-a-a-m-a-a-a! Ma-a-a-m-a-a-a! Ma-a-a-m-a-a-a!

...when I was a young teenager and my mom asked me to sit with her while she lay depressed, sinking into the couch: Mom, I wish you didn’t feel so bad. I want to be happy and go outside and hang with my friends. I feel trapped. I feel like I can’t move. I feel like I can’t breathe. I think you might hate me if I say No, get up, and leave the house. I wish my siblings hadn’t left home. I wish you and Dad hadn’t divorced. I can’t handle your pain, Mom, it’s too much for me. It’s too big, too deep. I love you, but I can’t fix you. I just want to run and go have fun and forget you and your pain. I want to escape. I feel I’m being held hostage by the pain of your own childhood trauma. I need to go! I need to go! I need to go! I wish I could stand up, walk away from you, and go.

…when I was 16 and my step-mother gave me the 3rd degree over many dinners at their apartment while my dad remained silent, except for occasionally chiming in his support of her: I’m not going to college because, frankly, I’m emotionally stunted from having been raised by a depressed and often emotionally unavailable mother whom my sister and I chose to live with after the divorce because we are girls, after having first chosen our dad because the lawyers and my parents couldn’t bring themselves to make the decision for us and now, hey, Dad, why are you double-teaming me and not letting up when you see tears of humiliation and shame roll down my cheeks because I am unable to give satisfactory answers about college and “Why do you love that boy?” Dad, please! I need you to defend me and tell her to back off, but you morphed into an obedient puppy when you married this loud Jewish woman who is seventeen years your younger.

…when my father and step-mother said that my adult boyfriend of several years could not be included in the family group photograph until we were married because he was not officially part of the family: Well, then all you married people can’t be in it either if you can’t guarantee that you’ll never, ever get divorced. This family photo is just a snapshot of who we are as a family right now, in this moment. (My “boyfriend” and I are still not married, but have been together for sixteen years. One married couple in the photo has since gotten divorced.)