Am I Awake or Asleep?

My reality is so perplexing to me at times that I feel like I'm in some kind of a "B" grade movie.

I'm separated from my husband and my cats due to an immigration mishap, but the situation has actually grown to be far more complicated beyond anything that I could have ever imagined or dreamed of.  I've been apart from Michael and my two sweet kitties for about two months now, though the months have felt like years in all honesty. As a result of my temporary deportation, I've been traveling all over N. America from one safe haven to the next.  There have been blessings from this unwanted separation, namely the possibility of spending quality time with my dearest friends and with family members whom I rarely get to see.  However, this entire journey has been filled with pain and desperation and utter confusion.  Maybe of some of that is a blessing as well, but I'm not at a place where I can truly understand how this will all come together to create something better yet.
I hope that there is a light at the end of this tunnel.  There has to be.  I need there to be a light, and I need it to shine brightly so that I may be guided in this time of darkness.

After two months of separation, and after two long months of processing the feelings that have been stirred up by not only the deportation but by the life experience I've had this past year, I finally was able to at least get clear about one thing:  my dedication to my marriage.  Things have not been easy, and I have become a person so filled with loss and anger that I'm sometime unrecognizable even to myself.  Between the financial hardships and stress and the foot ailment and the horrible treatment which I received and then the move to a foreign country and the nonstop rain and dreariness and then the loss of both my property and my credit, I lost my identity and my joy.  I became filled with rage and grief to a point that I've never experienced before.  Yes, I had lost my father when I was 25.  I was totally devastated by his untimely and sudden death.  But that experience was very different from this one.  Grief, however debilitating it may be, is not the same as a full-on depression.  This was a foreign experience to me, and I became a shell of myself.

I felt a caged animal, in a place that wasn't home and without a support system to help me up.

I was raw, I was enraged, and I took it out on myself and my husband and on our marriage.

To make matters more bizarre, I ended up getting into a pretty awful bicycle accident.  Supposedly my handlebars suddenly flipped 180 degrees, and I flew off my bike and landed onto the right side of my head and then onto my right hip.  I don't remember the accident at all, and I don't remember getting helped up or speaking with the police.  I came to as I was speaking with the emergency crew who were desperately trying to get me to the hospital with them. I'm very lucky that I didn't suffer from a hematoma, especially since no CT scan was ever performed at the hospital.  They X-rayed me and told my husband that I didn't have a fracture in my skull.  It wasn't until a month later when I finally had to have a CT scan (due to my impending deportation and my need to fly at altitude coupled with my persistent sinus symptoms) that we found out that I did in fact fracture my skull.  Had I known that when I was in the hospital, I would have never chosen to leave 24 hours earlier than what the doctors recommended.  48 hours in a hospital room with 2 other patients wasn't exactly a great place to rest, and rest is what I felt I needed most.  But I knew that there was a risk of developing a hematoma, but the risk seemed minimal if there wasn't a fracture and if I was well after 24 hours of surveillance.

After that biking accident, I had such a horrible headache all of the time, I suffered from an excruciating migraine which I didn't realize was coming on because my head hurt all the time anyway, my vision and hearing were off for at least a month, my sinuses felt like they were filled with fluid though they weren't, and even my memory was noticeably different.  My preferences in taste changed temporarily, all kinds of light felt blinding to me, and the right side of my body near my hip was swollen and sore and even still feels off deep into my core.

And then as I was trying to heal and to treat my body well and to rest, I found out that we had missed the mark with my immigration documents.  I wonder why we never spoke with an immigration attorney, and I do wonder if maybe an attorney could have helped me. But I wanted to leave Austria anyway, I wanted to leave the rain and the miserable life experience that I had there, and I was told that there was nothing that anyone could do since I missed the 3 month deadline.  My application for residency was supposed to be turned in within 3 months of my entrance into Austria, but Michael thought I had 6 months in which to get my paperwork in.  Since everything was in German and since the immigration office in Feldkirch was merely 10 minutes from where we were living, Michael was in charge of my immigration process and with speaking to the people in charge.  This process was supposedly much easier than procuring a Green card in the U.S., and we did that successfully! I think that this must have been the first time that I never bothered him or followed up with him about something that he was responsible for, and sadly things went very wrong.  I was informed that once a person misses the deadline, the application must be submitted from outside of the EU. I still haven't heard a word from immigration, but I will be able to re-enter the EU as a tourist by the end of November.

Initially, the error that was made infuriated me.  I felt so disappointed and exasperated and even turbulent.

All of a sudden I became homeless along with jobless, and even more dependent than before.

I questioned everything about my life, especially my marriage and what we were attracting into our lives.

Was all this suffering the result of us being together?  Maybe we just weren't right for each other, and life was letting us know?

I don't think that anymore.  I know how we met, how magical it was, and how much love and happiness I felt.
I think that the stress and the pain and the anger have gotten in the way of our marriage.

We didn't have a fair shot, and I want one.

I want myself back, and I want my marriage back.

More than anything, I want to be with my husband and my cats.

Then suddenly, just a short while after I became clear within myself, Michael told me that his parents don't want us to be together.  I know that they want to protect him, but this energy cannot possibly do anything but create more pain, more complexity, and more stress to our lives.  A part of me feels so much hurt and so much resentment, that I cannot even possibly imagine setting my foot into these people's home again.  How can I do that and maintain any level of self-respect? Yet everything I want is currently there-my husband, my cats, and everything material that I have left aside from what's in my suitcase.  I don't care about the furniture anymore, but I love my art and my collection of rocks and crystals and alter pieces.

This can't be right, and this can't continue.

As I continue to question what is real and what dreams I have in my heart, I must do so within the context of all that is actually happening in my world.  I want to be with Michael. I want to be with my cats.  I want to create an life completely independent of Michael's family, yet I also want to live a life in harmony with his family and with the world at large.  There must be a way to heal the hurt, to forgive the errors that have been made by all  parties involved, to move forward as a family, to build a new life with my husband and with my cats, and to live our lives in such a way that is congruent with our hearts.

Am I awake, or am I asleep?  If I'm asleep, may I please wake up so that I may see the Way and trust in Love and in my heart.  May I please see what's real, what's truly important, and how I may change and create peace and joy versus so much pain and confusion.

What is my dream?  How can I get there?  How can I get there through and for the good of all?

What is Michael's dream?  Is he awake or asleep?

Please let there be a light, and let that light shine on me.