Unsettled

Today has been ... unsettling. That all-day-long-sort-of-unsettling that keeps a person from being able to concentrate on anything for more than a moment or two.

The thing is, things have been going along pretty smoothly, and I really can't complain. Hubster's layoff has been one of the best things that have ever happened to us. My back has slowly, but surely, been getting better, and my hips aren't killing me all the time anymore. I haven't lost anyone close to me, and except for the occasional cold or ear infection, we are healthy.

But I had a nightmare right before I woke up this morning that has had my head in a tailspin all day long. I'm sure it has to do with the recent terror attack in Boston, and the death and dismemberment of so many people and the fertilizer plant explosion in West, TX. My heart aches for all of those affected by it, whether they were direct victims, families of those injured or killed, or those who had to see unspeakable things when they rushed in to try to help those who were hurt.

I didn't really think I was gravely affected by it, since I didn't personally know anyone who was hurt or terrorized. I've shielded the girls from watching the news, and I've personally tried to stay away from it myself. I've found in the past that I can so easily be sucked into a great abyss of darkness, if I focus on tragedies like this too much. And my kids don't need for me to live in an abyss. They need me to be their mom.

Normally, I don't repeat bad dreams, because they're usually a distant memory by noon. But today, I need to write about my dream, because it will let me forget it and will let me sleep tonight above ground. Now is the time to x out of this post, if you are affected negatively by other people's dreams.  

In my dream, Hubster and I had taken a trip of some sort to a large city. I don't know what city we were in. All I know is that it was large and unfamiliar. It apparently had some good shopping though, and we'd stopped at some mega store to look for something for the house. I only remember that it was small, because we kept turning it over and looking at it and one next to it to determine, if it would be a good fit in our home.

After looking at the thing for 10 minutes or so, we realized that Scooter was gone. We were frantic. We started calling her name in a panic and panicking, because we knew she couldn't let us know that she heard us. We saw some checkers near the front registers, so we asked, if they had seen a young girl and described Scooter to them.

The gal we spoke with said, "I haven't seen her, but I know a young girl died outside the front doors a little bit ago!" She went on to say that the girl died on the tracks...I don't know, if they were subway tracks or from a trolley car or what, but they were apparently right outside the front doors of the store. 

Our hearts sank. We instantly felt guilty that we'd let her out of our sight pictured her tripping onto the tracks. I remember going down to the morgue and trying to identify the body, and being relieved that it wasn't her but being absolutely terrified that we'd taken the time to go to the morgue. That meant that we'd wasted precious time that we could have spent looking for her at the store. 

The dream then morphed into me telling Hubster's niece that I was so incredibly sorry that I had dreamed that she had died. She didn't want anything to do with me because of the dream. I think that even in my sleep it was too much for me to actually dream that something had really happened to her, and that I somehow convinced myself in my dream that it was a dream about someone else.

Around noon today, something the clerk said came back to me. When she was telling us that someone had just died out front, I'd asked her when it happened. She said that the girl had fallen 2 or 3 hours before, but that she had died about 20 minutes before we asked her about it, so I  have no idea why the timing didn't dawn on us in my dream, and we went to the morgue instead.

All I know is that this nightmare has clung to me like the smell of a bad cigar all day long. I haven't been able to shake it, and even recounting it to write it down has caused my stomach to lurch with anxiety. We've had a couple of close calls over the years with losing her for a few minutes, once when she decided she couldn't wait to use the restroom, and we found her in one of the stalls in the mens restroom at the zoo, and the next time when she decided to go visit the neighbor when we thought we had all the doors locked to the point that she couldn't get out. 

Both situations caused untold anxiety and worry, and rightfully so. Neither situation should have happened. At the same time, a parent can easily be distracted by one of their other children, a phone call or a conversation. We are fallible. After all, we are only human. Still. I think it's time we find something to aid us in finding her, if she's ever separated from us again.