Deserting

I don’t know what it is with my mind and my dad lately. I slept early last night, out by around 9:45 pm after not getting enough sleep the night before. I woke up around 4:30 am, pulled out of a dream so vivid it left me genuinely anxious. Couldn’t go to sleep after.

I was there in our ancestral house. My dad was sitting in the dining room, watching TV in his usual chair, under those same dim lights that flicker a few times every hour. I left him be and headed out to meet someone.

I found myself at an ex-colleague’s house, someone I’d barely interacted with before, maybe a chat or two, tops. She and her husband have two kids, roughly my daughter’s age. In the dream, it felt like they were relatives of mine. I spent hours there, then we headed out somewhere else, and came back to their house again. Their sons were playing when it suddenly hit me: who’s with my dad right now?

He can’t get up on his own. If he tries, he falls and hurts himself badly. He needs to get up roughly every hour for the bathroom, needs his diaper changed, needs to be fed and looked after. It had already been more than three-quarters of the day, and no one was with him. The panic set in instantly, hard. I was stunned at myself for completely overlooking that he had no one at home. I ran toward my house and woke up with a jolt.

I was so anxious the moment I surfaced from sleep. I’m not entirely sure what my mind is trying to tell me. Maybe it’s anxiety from being away on a long trip without seeing him. Maybe it’s guilt rolling through me, like I’ve abandoned him somehow. Either way, this exact theme keeps coming back, again and again, in my dreams.

She’s shown up in other dreams too, ones that aren’t even about her, but she’s become a permanent fixture in my life somehow. Not a friend, not a guest, not someone passing through, something steadier and more solid than that. I’m not entirely sure why. Even in this dream, she was there, or at least being talked about.

A lot of loose cannons firing off in my head right now. I need to calm it all down and actually sleep well. I also haven’t been able to focus on my book lately. Every time I start a page, my mind wanders off, and by the time I’ve flipped to the third page, I realize I don’t remember a single word of it. I’ve read the current chapter at least eight times over the last few days and still have no idea what’s actually happening in it. I’m resolving to slow down today and give it another real try.

Slow down.