Escher, Dali, & Tim Burton Film My Biography

Dear John,

 

I worked a long day today, over nine hours. I was tying things up to get off at 5:00, when an order arrived by UPS at 4:30. I had to get milk, butter, and salsa on the way home. So I got home to my hungry animals a little before 7:00.

 

On the way home I was pondering my car accident in May of 2011, and the fact that it still doesn't seem real to me. And that makes sense because I have no memory of it, and with the head injury, not much memory of the month of June. Nothing unusual there.

 

Then I realized that everything since that accident has a sense of unreality about it. Your lung cancer was diagnosed in late June, while I was recovering from the head injury and everything was still a little strange and disconnected. And the world went spinning right off of its axis. 

 

Everything after that - your hospitalizations, chemo, even your going back to work, then your last three months in hospitals, your death, and my life without you - all of that seems wildly impossible. It feels like a surreal, sick parody of my life. It's like Escher, Salvadore Dali, and Tim Burton collaborated to film my biography.

 

I wish I could wake up in the Parkview ICU and find that I've dreamed all of this. Then life could go back to normal. Nobody shot JR, and Bobby didn't die, and Bob Newhart is still married to Suzanne Pleshette, and everything is alright. Wouldn't that be lovely? When I wake up, can I keep Hunter and Abby? I know you'd love them.

 

But I'm not going to wake up from this, am I? This twisted, surreal existence really is my life. And it doesn't seem real at all. But I keep on functioning - relating normally to people, feeding the animals, and brushing my teeth and doing laundry. And it seems like it's somebody else's life and not mine.

 

But the IRS, the post office, and the credit companies think it's mine, so it must be. I wonder how long it will be until all of this feels real to me. I'll let you know when it happens. In the meantime, thank goodness for automatic pilot! I'll keep on keeping on. And I'll try not to think about Dali too much - I'll look at the sane ordinary beauty of Vermeer and Van Eck, or just stand in front of my icons and pray. But part of me still wants to wake up in Parkview.

 

Adore you,

Joan.