Does the horizon narrow

Dear jo,

I don’t know if I can’t sleep because of the chemotherapy treatment a few days ago, or because of what’s on my mind. A combination of both, likely. “What’s on your mind?” I imagine someone asking. “Loss,” I reply. There’s something about being in the midst of moving across the planet, back to the U.S., making such a huge transition, and it’s got me noticing the losses upon losses that G. and I have endured these last few years. I think back to when we met over a decade ago, and who I was back then, what I was like, what I stood for, what my dreams were, where it seemed like my life was heading. Who was that person she fell in love with and married? And where did he go? Obviously I was a certain kind of fellow that had a particular set of qualities, and probably many of those endure yet today. But what of the other threads? What of this guy who had left a deeply committed spiritual lifestyle to study in the field of mental health, to pursue an advanced degree, to learn the art of psychotherapy so that he could facilitate opportunities for other’s healing and health? What of this ambitious fellow who had the audacity to commence such a project in his mid-thirties? Where did he go; what came of him; how was his fate? I think of that person who my wife fell in love with and committed to, that man who aspired to a certain career and quality of lifestyle, that included an openness to adventure and travel that would lead to Boston and Japan and Taiwan, and then dreams of maybe Europe, maybe who knows what other exciting new places! The horizon back then felt so open, so vast, so vibrant and filled with possibilities! … That man and that lifestyle feels so far away now. The horizon has narrowed so dramatically in the last few years. I stepped away from my psychotherapy practice, I let go of my career. As a family we lost half of our income, travel has dwindled to paltry occasional trips. Now ever so much time and money and energy gets consumed by hospital visits and cancer treatments and surgeries. And now that we’re moving to the U.S., we go as a couple with what feels like half the resources we had before, half the possibilities, half the horizon—sometimes it feels like less than half. And in moments of brutal honesty, the likelihood is substantial that that horizon may narrow further still. … One blessing of having a terminal diagnosis is that I seem to often have an enhanced ability to enjoy that narrow slice of horizon more than before. And that is a profound blessing for which I’m truly grateful. But the volume of loss we’ve accrued feels just devastating sometimes. And it sickens me, sometimes just brings me to my knees to have put G. through all of this, for her to endure having lost so much of what she must have imagined living and having and being when she committed herself to me. I pray that she not be regularly (if still occasionally she must be) plagued by this perspective---and but by the grace of God am I able to know in my heart that none of this is my fault. But it’s just bloody brutal to feel all the loss we carry. Even as we endeavor not to carry but instead to let go of expectations, even as we long to surrender to what we cannot control, even as we refocus on what we do have and conjure gratitude for it. Still the losses can be overwhelmingly ineffable. … Okay, now I try and sleep again