Dream a Little Dream

Last night I was lying awake at about 3am trying to will myself to sleep and letting my mind wander. I thought about my eggs in my one remaining ovary and the fact that, once released, they have nowhere to go now. No fallopian tube, no endometrium. I was struck by an image of my egg detaching from my ovary and slowly floating away into the extracellular space.

Whoop, bang! I suddenly had a very vivid memory of a dream I'd had during chemo.

I am an astronaut on a space walk outside my ship. I am performing some routine task when I get detached from the ship and gently pushed away. I watch as the space between myself and the ship increases very slowly. There is nothing I can do. Once I start floating away from the spaceship there is no way to "swim" back due to the absence or air pressure and there is no friction to slow down my motion. I panic. I know I'm going to die. I watch as the ship gets smaller and smaller until I am not sure if I can make it out at all and then it is gone. I think about what will happen to me and conclude that I will die of dehydration in a few days. (In the light of day I realize that I would probably suffocate or freeze first, but in the dream it's dehydration.) I look up at the stars and they are beautiful. Nothing but stars everywhere. No horizon, no spaceship, just points of light surrounding me. I realize that I have this amazing opportunity to just float among the stars for a few days, with nothing to do but soak in the sight of them. Since I'm going to die, I can just let go of everything else except the beauty of my starshow. And so I let go. The panic subsides. I am truly living in the moment for the first time ever. I have no future to worry about and no way to save myself. I am free to just gaze out for as long as I have left and look at this sight that most humans are not lucky enough to see.