Questions. And a dream about a giant slug.

2002-10-15 - 12:11 a.m.

So, first an apology to any new readers. Usually my life is not a melodrama, per se, unless the poinsetta is acting up or the anti-lit demon cat is especially affectionate (Oh, his mercurial passions!). This explosion sort of came at a bad time, what with the release of my very first ever banners and all.

Since this isn't my usual fair, I'll try to keep the bulk of what I'm going to say in one, easy-to-ignore entry, keeping it light because otherwise it'll be dull and not worth much of anything to all of you. And in the spirit of keeping it light, would you believe that the exact explanation of the situation was revealed to me in a dream today?

That's not usual for me either. Mostly my dreams lately have been about me clipping my fingernails or ringing through groceries at my old job as a cashier. I've rarely had revelatory dreams, if ever. But this one had a woman (who may have been blind-merv, which has me worried, since if she's appearing in my dreams she may well have died when she moved from Halifax to North Bay Ontario.), who basically described Pookie's current situation, though left me with no answers as to what I should do.

Though it may not be a good evaluation, since the dream began with the wise-woman's observation, and ended with a giant slug who contained a universe in her belly. The giant slug saved some intrepid kids from an evil demon, by absorbing them into her interior universe and crushing the demon with a giant mug of coffee that she'd taken from her guts.

Basically, Pookie was abused. He's made great strides at moving on from his abuse, but in the process he's found himself in other relationships where he was in the same situation. I think I've been good for him, since I don't think I am abusive (but then, who does?), but he carries a lot of anger and mistrust around with him.

He's been working through that, especially over the summer with the requisite councelling/exploring portion of his work term at the hospital, and most recently with a therapist who seems interested in having him talk rather than just foisting pills on him.

But in the process of dealing with his anger and his past, he's churning all that stuff up. What the wise woman in my dream said was "He's learned to be a functional abuse survivor, but he hasn't learned yet how to be a whole human being." In the way that dreams are, I understood that the explanation is that in order for him to heal, he's had to leave behind a lot of his coping techniques. He can't deny things anymore, for example, and that means he has to live with them. Without his old tools for survival he's had to find new ones, but those tools are shaky and unpractised, some of them aren't right for him, others he overuses out of desperation.

For almost 4 years he's treated me quite well. We've had arguments and have hurt each other unintentionally before, though moments like this weekend's have never happened, at least to me. Right now we're at an impasse of sorts...we have decided to talk about things, but spent today mutually avoiding each other, an impressive feat in our small apartment.

All day, though, I've been catching myself playing "what if." What if this is it? I'm making enough at work to be self-sufficient, and even enough to squirrel away some cash for the future. My long-term plans (school, paying off debts, etc) would be trashed or pushed back, but for the short term I'd be okay, I wouldn't be in dire straits. But is that something that I want? Would I be happier?

The things I want to talk about are: 1) That this never happen again. If we stay together, that was his one chance. No more. 2) That we find some time to do some couples' councilling. We need it, because if he has some issues with his history, then I need to learn how to help him and what to expect, and he needs to learn more effective ways at not just dealing with his problems, but dealing with me in relationship to them. And I probably have some issues, too. 3) This is the big one and probably the most effective...it's also the most difficult to do. That we give up drinking. The original argument we had that night was related to drinking, and most of the problems we've had together stem from one or both of us getting drunk. Neither of us are responsible drinkers, and I think that neither of us will ever easily become just "casual" drinkers. Sounds very wise, doesn't it?

Those are the things I should talk with him about. The questions that I'm asking myself are a little different.

The first is, can we work through this, and our problems for the long term? The second is, Can I live and be happy without him, will I be better or worse off?

Right now I don't know the answer to either of those questions. I suspect that their answers are mutually linked and that finding the answer to one will reveal the answer to the other. It's really scary not knowing the answers to those questions, though.

I guess that wasn't too cheery or light after all. Hm. Well, I'm back at work tonight, so I'll probably over compensate with some crazy entries before the shift is done.

Cheers,

The Magus

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