The Bear Dreams

So one thing I don't want to do is make this into a dream diary, but lately my dreams have seemed to hold a large amount of significance. In this last 12 months I had two surgeries for skin cancer, and chemo since april, and I've spent the better half of the year seeing doctors, talking about melanoma, worrying about melanoma, cancer this cancer that, blah blah blah. It's funny the way after all that fear of mortality spills into your dreams and can terrorize you. I have one reoccurring dream for the last few months.

I am camping with my husband, something we enjoy doing together. Everything is dandy and we're partying it up Alberta style and we are standing around a warm fire. There is rustling in the woods behind us and a bear comes charging out of the woods. This bear destroys our camp and we go flying into the truck. For some reason, husband wants to stay camping with this crazy bear out there, but I just want to leave. I feel the imminent danger and will not stick around to let this fucked up animal eat me.

Something happened recently, I stopped being afraid. I woke up one day and thought, I have a serious disease, and yes, it could kill me, but so could lots of things. Why would I feed the disease with fear when I could go on LIVING and giving the disease the middle finger? I thought, a scared slave to the fear is not who I am. I am not a sheep, I am a wolf. It felt so good to let go.

So the dream changed a little bit. Again I am camping, again having a fun party, and the same dangerous rustling starts behind me, and I know this time, that is a bear. The bear comes to our camp, but I stand up and somehow I am taller and larger than the bear. The beast retreats and I know he's there, but I am not afraid of him. I stay at the camp.

I know I'll probably have bear dreams for a while, and I am sure the bear will scare me away again. But working on living my life without fear will eventually drive that bear far away from me, and my husband and I will still go camping.