I have no idea what brought this on, but I’m an emotional mess.
Last night (or this morning) I dreamed that I had adopted a child who (at the time of the dream) was about Owl’s age and with his complexion – blond hair, blue eyes, etc. I wasn’t me in the dream, which is common. My dreams usually involve me being a fictional person living a fictional life. Not sure why.
Anyhoozle, I had this adopted little boy, and he died in his sleep, from undetected cholera (despite having NONE of the symptoms of cholera, but whatever, subconscious).
I was heartbroken and inconsolable and spent, like, the next two days clutching him to me and wailing dramatically, refusing to let him go.
To add to my misery, the baby was fairly famous. Now, as the dream went on his exact identity fluxed several times. At one point, he was Daniel Radcliffe’s younger brother (I was looking for pictures of Danial Radcliffe as a baby to see if he looked like his brother as part of my grieving process). At another point, he was some kind of close relative of Hitler, moved to me for safety reasons.
In all cases he had been adopted from Europe, so I had to go back there for the funeral.
By the time we got there, they said he needed to have a closed casket because he had decomposed enough that he wouldn’t be cute with his casket open. This caused even more despair because I hadn’t expected that and lost the chance to look on his little face one last time (maybe that’s when I googled Daniel Radliffe’s baby photos? Dream is hazy).
It was a bad dream.
Now, I haven’t been dwelling on the dream all day, but instead I find myself just dwelling on sad things.
I have caught myself thinking in graphic detail about the scene in Mama’s Going To Buy You A Mockingbird when the mother tells the children that their father has died, and imagining how I would weather a similar scenario.
I have caught myself going to pieces over a news article about a couple who adopted a child and had to give her back to her father, who never gave up custody.
Pretty much, anything sad my mind wanders to or is directed to, I dwell on, my empathy going into overdrive until I feel like it is happening to me.
This is apparently what happens when I try to go to bed early and catch up on lost sleep.
NaNoWriMo wore me out, but I WON DAMMIT !
Don’t worry, I am adamantly NOT thinking about that scene from Sophie’s choice.