I have bad nightmares.
Often.
Some people are lucky enough to have reoccurring dreams. To you I say ENJOY IT.
Because I have reoccurring nightmares.
The first nightmare I can ever remember revolves around the story of Snow White. I remember waking up from the nightmare, running into my parents room, and waking my mom up simply because I was scared.
The witch was about to push me off the cliff. She would creep closer and closer, I would stare at her big ol’ nose, and then her arm would stretch out towards me, determined to push me to my death.
And then I would wake up.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this dream. From the time I was little until even in the past year or two, I will randomly wake up moments from being pushed off the imaginary cliff.
I’m not the biggest fan of Snow White.
Nor am I a fan of running or the dark. I’m especially not a fan of both at the same time, which is what my other reoccurring nightmare centers around. In that nightmare I’m running through bad neighborhood after bad neighborhood. I don’t know how I got there or where I’m going, but that I’m simply trying to escape. I’m being chased and if they catch up to me, I’ll be taken and killed. Or perhaps worse, tortured and then killed.
It’s night time and so everything is pitch black. I’m really scared of what’s IN the dark, so running through I-don’t-know-where in darkness is terrifying to me.
I always end up in the same house, though. No matter how many times I have this nightmare, I eventually find myself hiding in the same kitchen in the same house. I scramble to fit myself in a kitchen cabinet. I hear my chasers outside. I hear the pounding on the door and the family (of the house I’m hiding in) telling my chasers that I’m not there. But they come in and stand in the kitchen. They know, though I don’t have any idea how, that I’m there. Hiding. Scared.
Then I wake up.
Every. Single. Time.
I don’t know if they open the cabinet door, grab me, and take me to Who Knows Where. I don’t know if they think the panting they hear is their own breathing. I simply don’t know what happens, except that I wake up.
And when I wake up, I can’t go back to sleep. Because no matter how hard I focus on lollipops or rainbows or ice cream piled 16 scoops high, I will close my eyes and be right back in that kitchen cabinet.
That’s life, isn’t it? Things get so bad that we just want to wake up from the nightmare. And when we do, the thing we’re most scared of is closing our eyes and being right back in that desperate place in our nightmare. We’ll stay awake with our eyes wide open, searching the early morning shadows for anything out of the ordinary, simply to keep ourself from falling back into the bad dream that can sometimes be called life.
Today things were different for me, though. I have spent many nights forcing myself to not close my eyes again, even as they tried to snap shut. I knew what would come, and I knew that 20 minutes later I would wake up, once again, sweaty and tired from “running” or “clinging to the cliff” in my own safe bed. So I would remain awake. I wouldn’t allow myself to go back to sleep.
But last night I had a great dream. I was at some random camp and one of the leaders there was starting to lead a game. I had never heard of it before, but was interested to play, simply because the leader was a girl I really trusted and loved back when they lived close and I saw them often (a girl that I still love, but just see less often). The game ended up revolving solely around strength and trust. You had to balance on a stack of books, some small some big, trying to rearrange pieces to form a picture. A picture you had just seen for a measly few seconds. Someone else would stand behind you, ready to catch you if you fell.
An old friend was chosen to be the one balancing, and someone from an opposing team would have to catch her if she fell. If it was a member of the same team, of course they would do everything they could to catch her. That’s why it had to be an opposing team member; it took more trust.
I was chosen to be the ‘spotter’ and we began the challenge. She did a great job and had the picture almost completed, when she had to get a little higher. More books were there to stand on, but they were really small and not stable at all. She was determined, though, so she got up on those books.
Then my alarm went off and I woke up, a tad annoyed that I wouldn’t know how it ended. The story wasn’t over; it wasn’t complete. I wanted to know the rest. So I hit snooze and, for once, went back to my dream to see what would happen.
She got a little closer and then fell off. I caught her and we landed on the ground. I bumped my head on a box that had been used as a stepping stool, and she landed on top of me. She was fine, but concerned about my head. In the end I was totally fine, and two more people were chosen to attempt the challenge.
My alarm went off again. I got up to turn it off, happily knowing the ending. She hadn’t completed the entire picture, but she had done her best and I had done my job. We both did our best.
A Happy Ending..
Unlike so many endings that I do my best to not experience, this one was good.
I have to wonder, would my other ending be good if I simply let them…end.
If I let myself fall back asleep would I find a way to push the witch off the cliff instead? Would my chasers walk away and search other houses, never finding me?
How would the stories end?
If I don’t let them end, I’ll simply never know.
If I don’t let bad situations, even good situations, in my life end…I’ll never know.
I’ll always wonder.
What If…?
Do I feel fully ready to let go and let the end come in different situations? Am I totally 100% prepared and ready to let relationships end? No. I don’t think I am. I’m close, but I’m not at 100%. I’m getting there, though. The end is coming, and I can’t prolong it much longer.
What do you need to let end?
