Sleepwalking

Were you a sleepwalker as a child? I was. I’d get up at night and shuffle around. I’d even have conversations with my parents who told me to get back in bed. I grew out of it.  When I got my diagnosis a little over a year ago, one of the first revelations I had was realizing I had succumbed to “sleepwalking,” figuratively speaking, again.   

Getting my diagnosis of having a terminal illness got my attention. That’s an understatement, to be sure. I “woke up” immediately.  I had been “sleepwalking” and didn’t know it. Again, when you’re literally sleepwalking, you’re asleep, but still have a degree of functioning and movement. Until my diagnosis, I had been on “autopilot” or “sleepwalking” at times through life. Not necessarily a bad thing. Raising children, managing our business, paying bills, being responsible, doing the “right thing,” and working, working, working. My problem was I was in denial of my mortality.

Often accompanying “sleepwalking” as I’m describing it is a lack of being present. At times I wasn’t. I was living in the future. When you’re not present, you’re usually not emotionally available either. That was me too at times. It’s not uncommon for men to be somewhere else, to be pre-occupied. All it takes though, is a heated argument or some serious shopping with a credit card bill following to snap husbands out of their slumber. 

A year ago, literally this month, I was told I had weeks to months to live without additional treatment. That news wrecked me. It was one of my worst days.

Now, a year later, while I’m still terminal, I’m in remission. I’m feeling better and gaining strength since my transplant. That’s what I was hoping for. However, as life has begun to resume a more normal pattern, I can feel the tug to fall “back to sleep again.”

Tim Kreider, a writer and satirical cartoonist, tells about how he was randomly attacked. He was stabbed in the back and in the throat by a neighbor in his apartment building. He almost died from the wounds. For the following year, the things that used to rattle him like issues at work, traffic, challenging relationships, computer problems, etc. didn’t faze him. After all, he was living in bonus time. He had survived a near-death experience. He was alive! He was fully awake!

But then a year since the attack, he writes in We Learn Nothing the same everyday anxieties and frustrations he experienced before the attack began creeping back into his life. He had re-entered the “busywork of living, the slog of everyday life.”

He had begun to sleepwalk again. At least he was aware of it.

Phil Volker is a blogger I admire greatly. His perspective on life changed radically when he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. His diagnosis “woke him up.” His dream had been to walk the 500-mile ancient pilgrimage route, the El Camino de Santiago, across Spain. Because his weekly chemo treatments prevented his going, he instead created a path on his 10 acre property and started walking his own Camino.

Phil sees his cancer as the catalyst for living a life characterized by tension, suffering, and gratitude.  His blog is a rich reflection of his spiritual journey living in the present moment.

I don’t want to re-enter sleep walking mode again. I want to live each day, awake, in the present moment. I want to embrace each day for the gift it is, the way my wife Jenny put it in her post.

So it is said:

“Wake up, O sleeper,

rise up from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.” ~ Ephesians 5:14

Thanks for reading!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE