Two nights ago I had this dream, I was standing at the top of a mountain. It was a barren, granite mountain top like those you often see in Maine. Suddenly the earth shifted under my feet and the rocks slid in a jagged, irregular path down the slope. I was left standing on what remained, knowing I needed to find a way down to the valley below where everyone else waited. It was then that I realized my Papa was with me and was waiting for me to lead the way down.
I began walking down, weaving around boulders and sliding over rocks that rolled beneath my feet. Every step of the way, Papa was behind me. I finally reached a point where there was a sheer cliff in front of me and a hill so steep and unstable behind me that I couldn’t backtrack. I was stuck.
In a blink, I was back at the top…back at the beginning with Papa waiting for me to try again. I did. Over and over and over again, I zig-zagged my way down the hill only to end up in the exact same situation. My frustration and my exhaustion increased each time but still Papa stood and waited, and I walked on.
Finally, I was too tired to try again. It was then that Papa reached out and grabbed my wrist. It reminded me of a time when he and I were sitting at his kitchen table talking and he had reached out and wrapped his hand around my wrist. He was able to encircle my wrist with his thumb and pinky finger with room to spare. The memory warmed me and I felt my hope rising. He grabbed my wrist firmly, and he spoke to me. I watched his mouth moving and started crying when I realized I couldn’t hear him. Whatever advice he had, was lost to me. Whatever happens next, I have to decide. That little seed of hope was gone and I woke up.
I’ve put forth a lot of effort doing the same things over and over and over hoping that this time I don’t end up here…stuck with no way forward and no way back. I have been stuck for a very, very long time…in fact, I wrote in 2011,
“It’s like…I am this great big ball of AWESOME but inside is still this teeny, dark seed of misery. I keep hoping will just die if I don’t feed it. So I take my happy pills and I turn my attention to other, much more important stuff and the AWESOME rules. Then I think, “Surely it’s gone now!” and peek.
Dude, I’m that idiot in horror movies who just HAS to open the basement door because it’s been quiet for SO long, surely the ax murderer is gone! D’oh! *sigh*”
I am so very tired of this endless loop. Somehow I have to figure out how to rid myself of that dark seed of misery. I need to do it, I can’t just keep waiting for it to vanish. I just wish I knew how…