I Wanted to Go

Last night I did a self-esteem hypnosis.

At one point I was asked to bring forward images from the past that I was ready to release.

I went immediately to the nine years I spent in a coercive, controlling relationship.

What surprised me was what I saw.

There were beautiful images there.

I saw myself making art. Thin. Looking good. Feeling alive. There were glimpses of a woman who felt vibrant and creative and intensely herself.

And yet, as I watched those images, I noticed my abdomen tighten.

Alongside the aliveness was protection.

My body seemed to remember both.

The hypnosis guided me to release what I no longer needed, and I imagined pulling it from myself in long ribbons of smoke.

Somewhere after that I fell asleep, or went deeper.

I dreamed that I wanted to go somewhere with my son.

The wanting was so strong.

That is what I remember most clearly.

I wanted to go.

He’s my son. We have fun together. I wanted to be with him.

But I had to turn around for my dad.

And even inside the dream I understood why.

My son could take care of himself.

My dad couldn’t.

My dad was vulnerable.

So I didn’t choose according to what I wanted.

I chose according to who needed me.

Then my father was on a plane.

I was on another plane beside him. He waved to me through the window.

There were no seats for me.

At one point our planes came within inches of crashing into one another.

Somehow they didn’t.

We landed, and I couldn’t find him.

I searched everywhere.

I tried to get a hotel room, but there was some strange new currency required that I didn’t have. The woman at the desk was impatient with me, so I left.

I couldn’t stay anyway.

I had to find my dad.

Eventually I found myself sitting among a crowd of people, crying.

I told them I couldn’t find my father.

They thought I was joking.

And finally I screamed:

My dad has Dementia .

Then I woke up.

I lay there thinking about the moment before all of it.

I wanted to go with my son.

It was such a simple desire.

There was nothing wrong with my father. There was nothing wrong with caregiving. There wasn’t even resentment in the dream.

There was simply a choice.

One person I loved could take care of himself.

The other couldn’t.

So vulnerability made the decision.

I turned around.

I have done that countless times without realizing there was even a choice being made.

When someone you love has dementia, need can become its own kind of gravity. Where you go, how long you stay, whether you rest, whether you leave the house, what part of your attention remains available—so many small decisions begin with the same question:

Is he okay?

And yet my dream did something strange after I turned around for him.

It put my father on his own plane.

I could see him.

I could wave to him.

I could fly beside him.

But there was no seat for me.

That is the part I am only beginning to understand.

I can love my father.

I can protect him where protection is possible.

I can create structure around him and find people who understand him and make his world safer.

I can walk beside him for as long as we have together.

But I can’t take his journey for him.

His plane is still his.

Mine is still mine.

And maybe the answer isn’t learning to choose myself instead of my father.

Maybe there is another possibility.

My father can be vulnerable without my being the only person responsible for his vulnerability.

Other people can care for him.

Other people can sit beside him, walk with him, redirect him, listen to him, make him laugh.

And sometimes I can notice something much quieter:

I want to go.

And go.