Rude Awakenings

I have decided that what is going on is that I am waking from a dream. Maybe several dreams.

This is how I am thinking about it today, and maybe I will think about it differently tomorrow. But for now, I like to view the angst and pain and confusion I am feeling in my life as the process and residue of waking up.

I had thought that I was living my life. I had thought that I had found my direction, my “calling” even, and I was merrily and a bit obtusely going about my days without a whole lot of thought expended on either the “where” or the “now.”

Which wasn’t all that criminal, because like I said, I thought I was moving in my direction.

But these days I find myself with a sharp, heavy ache in my breastbone and it radiates downward to become a knot in my belly. Another tendril of the ache travels to my spine, up my neck, and plants itself as a burning circle around my eyeball.

So obviously, something is a-kilter. I am identifying these (and other) symptoms as the accompaniments to awakening from my dreams.

I had my dreams (a marriage, a home, a social revolution), and now they are fleeing, and I am doing that thing I do when dreams have been so sweet–I am feeling sad and pissy to be awake.

Waking from dreams can be so jarring. Slipping out of a sweet, warm dream-state into the morning light’s glare, the alarm clock’s annoying airs, the list of chores awaiting–slammed into “life” suddenly, I stumble, stub my toe, and cry.

Today I sit and look back at those sweet dreams, and try to see my pain for what it is. I can name this The Loss of My Dreams, gnaw on the pain, and try to slip back into the fleeing dream-state.

Or I can see this time as an awakening, and view the pain simply as the stark contrast between the sweet dream times and the alarm clock’s shrillness.

I believe I will find more peace in awakening than in loss.

Photo by Elfleda and used with Creative Commons license.

Tagged as: change, gratitude, loss, love, marriage, peace