Anxiety

I don't sleep well. This along with having trouble focusing on complex, tedious tasks (writing psych reports) are the only symptoms of anxiety so far. Maybe also overanalyzing--but that's my standard defense mechanism and I have no intention of giving it up at this point.

I figured out why last night, after remembering how things were when Lucy died. I remember several times dreaming that she died just before I woke up in the morning. I would wake up crying. One morning I didn't remember until after I woke up, and it was like her death hit me all over again. Now, I think I wake up early to remember--oh yeah, I have cancer, right. I can deal with it, I've figured it out, I have my defensive structure in place. But it isn't just sleep that can make me forget. I found the new True Blood season and watched the first episode (trash vampire TV series), but in watching it, I forgot. When I remembered afterward, it was like getting punched in the stomach.

I am able to deal with it--the uncertainty, the nearness of death--when I keep it in mind, have a memory trail to it, am prepared. It costs spontaneity and mindless relaxation. I'm a fortress waiting for the inevitable onslaught--war has been declared but not yet joined. I see the campfires of the opposing army on the horizon. I can't run. I can't go out to meet it. So I marshal my forces and watch from the walls.

I also realize the silliness of an ordinary, fat, privileged, middle-age white woman thinking in such martial metaphors, but what the heck, we survive to the end however we can.