Stefano and I got back yesterday evening from a very pleasant long weekend spent in the Apennine mountains, near the Corno alle Scale, where my in-laws have a house.

Even though I had fun and played lots of card games this weekend, I didn’t sleep too well. In recent years, I have discovered that I have vivid nightmares if I have dinner after 9 p.m. And since southern Italians (Stefano was born in Florence, but his family is from a town near Naples) tend to eat rather late in the evening, we never finished dinner before 10 or even 10:30 p.m. this weekend. And, as expected, I had nightmares. Normally, I wouldn’t mind too much. But this time…

On Friday night I had a particularly bad nightmare that startled me awake. In my dream, I was having some sort of heated discussion with someone (I don’t remember a lot of details, but I was not arguing with Stefano) when all of a sudden I burst into tears and began shrieking, in Italian: “What do I care about that? That’s not important! Don’t you understand that myeloma is killing me??? Myeloma is killing me!!!” Il mieloma mi sta uccidendo!!! I remember those words very clearly.

That sentence and my desperate dream sobs still echo in my mind. So much so that I decided to write about it today. I have reached the conclusion that a part of me is really scared. It’s a deep down, hidden part that has already surfaced on a few occasions…so I knew of its existence. But now, for the first time, I have begun to acknowledge that I may be split into two selves: the cheerful, confident, optimistic me & the frightened, anxious, “what if…!” me. Luckily, the former is dominant. Very much so!

I am strong, I am positive, I am determined. But, it would seem, on some level I am also frightened of what may lie ahead.

I guess I’m human, after all…