morning panic

I woke up thinking about a dream I had:
Matt Damon and I on a couch talking and sitting between us a blue colored boy about 9 years old.
I immediately thought of the blue boy in a Hindu myth I've heard a few times, he was Krishna.

About 10 seconds after that, the pressure in my chest started.  It was hard to breath.  Reality sinking in.

I live in a finished room over the 2-car garage of my own home.  I look around wondering what the hell happened this month anyway.

My whole life has been turned upside down, topsy turvy.  I have yet to settle.

I have my things about me, my cats are here too.  Why the pounding away, still, after more than 2 weeks?

I got out of bed and ignored it.  I had a weeding job lined up and I washed up and drove down to the village.  I weeded for 2 hours.

The woman I am weeding for is my doctor (and friend).  Her family was visiting from down south.  As I was weeding a few feet from the front door, listening to them talk to each other, I thought, "I have a Master's degree and they probably think I am the gardener".  It was another dose of surrealism.  My life has turned into a Dali painting of sorts.

Before everything flipped inside out, I was visiting my mother on Long Island and we saw the new Woody Allen film, "Blue Jasmine".  I liked it very much.  It is a straight drama and not a usual plot for Allen.

Little did I know that 2 days later I would be facing a similar predicament as the Cate Blanchett character.  Seriously, for the few days I felt exactly the way she did at the closing scene of the film: Beside myself.

After weeding today I drove over the lake.  I went for a short swim and then sat down to read a bit.  I felt like my old self again, reading in the sun.  Here I am, I recognize myself in this situation, this is familiar.

By 3:30, the pounding panic returned.  I didn't know why and then I realized it was because I would be heading home soon.  Home?  No, my home is gone.  I was a stay-at-home mother and home schooled my children for 18 years.  I don't have my bedroom anymore.  I don't use the front door anymore.

I have my own entrance on the side of the house.  It's a big room with 5 windows.  I have my bed, my love seat, my father's table, my grandmother's table, a poster from Italy, my jade and geranium plants, my wooden snowy owl, and a bottle of water, among my things here.

I need to walk through my son's room to get to the bathroom or to get water or to do wash.

I was the pillar of the family.  I am no longer holding anything up, except my chin.

The house is a shell.  With my things taken out, it looks like a college dorm, all mishmashed stuff that doesn't go.  There are empty shelves and not enough furniture in the living room.

When I go in there it's like visiting a cemetery, a ghost.

What happened?

 He finally realized we are divorced.  It took 2 years for him to wake up and tell himself "She divorced me".    I know because that it what he keeps telling me.  "You divorced me."
Yes, yes I did, two years ago after several years of trying and a 2 year separation.

Anyway, I am not fighting him.  Why?  For what?

I've been stripped of my identity.  I am as vulnerable as I've ever been.

With my children being 16 and 18, it's not like I have children anymore.

.My first response was frozen terror and that ended a few days ago when I dragged myself to the dept of labor and offered up my resume.

I've been online reading ads and emailing my resume, like a robot.  I need to move on, I tell myself.

But this panic, this heaviness in my chest, what is this all about?  Open-heart surgery, that's what.

My body is in shock, still.   I need to rest.   I don't cry.  I say very little actually.

I don't think it will take me 2 years to acknowledge what happened, but 2 weeks is too soon.

For today, I am okay.  I have food.  My car works.  I'm not mumbling and drooling on a park bench.

Like that lovely old Muslim man told me in Italy a few months ago when I was overwhelmed, in the rain, in a train station that wouldn't take my credit card to buy my transfer ticket, "If you have what you need for today, you are like a king. What more do you need?"

My body doesn't know it yet but we didn't die.  We've lost so much and yet our heart still beats.

Boom, boom.
Boom, boom.
Boom, boom.