You Just Keep Me Hanging On

One evening last week, I was working the phone like my job was in a call center: stressful and with frustrating results.  The buyer of my house was begging for ANOTHER extension since he hadn’t sold his townhouse. My realtor was insisting that we squash the deal and let him find me a “real” buyer-something that he hadn’t produced in the previous five months. I was trying to juggle meeting up with a friend who simultaneously was trying to juggle a mandatory visit to an in-law in the hospital. A lot of talk with no action.

That night, I had a dream about Wingman which shocked me because I don’t recall having even one dream about him since he died. In it, we were on a cruise ship which was apropos, since he said, after our only cruise together, that the next one would be “over his dead body”.

The ship was at port, but the sea was rough, and water was breaking over the bow. A large wave swept me into white water on the deck. Suddenly, a hand grabbed my wrist, and wouldn’t let go. I was tossed around under the water but because of the grip, I couldn’t right myself dammit. As the water subsided, I looked at the person who grabbed my hand to yell at him for almost drowning me. I couldn’t see the face, but the voice was definitely Wingman’s. The body however, with the six-pack abs certainly was NOT. I gasped out loud and sat bolt upright in bed. If not Wingman, who the hell was it? And why didn’t I thank him for trying to save me?

Hello 4:17 AM. Welcome to my panic attack.

I asked Google, or “G”, my know-it-all husband of sorts what the dream represented. Drowning? Being overwhelmed. The hand holding? Loneliness. And the six-pack abs? My inner desire of how I want to see myself.

Yes, I know, time to go back to the gym.

I’m suffering with the paralysis of analysis right now. I want to move, but can’t because my buyer can’t sell. Because of that, I can’t get motivated to pack. I won’t relist the house because it will require me to live like a guest in my own home-again. I want to join a gym, and know I SHOULD. But I know me and if I really do move, I know that I won’t go which is a waste of money that I don’t have because I CANT SELL THIS STUPID HOUSE. I lay in bed flipping between apps like Redfin looking at townhouses I can’t have and Our Time, looking at men I don’t want.

Truth be told, I’ve been working myself up into a mental frenzy about a year from now when I have two weddings on the same weekend. Both are the daughters of dear friends and I couldn’t be happier for them. But after feeling totally alone at a wedding a couple of years ago, it took jumping out of an airplane for me to regain my sense of worth. To be dateless at two? It may require being ejected from a fighter jet to get over that. There is however. one happy thought I'm holding onto: I may not have a dance partner, but there also will be no one to tell me that I can’t have a second piece of wedding cake. Two days in a row.

Then I’ll think about that gym membership. For real.