River of Dreams

 

 

I had one of those nightmares that doesn’t go right away when you wake up.  It was about work; I won’t share the details, not because it was that bad, but because it was about work and everyone knows you don’t talk publicly about work, right?   It was along the lines of being late to school, or going to school/work in your underwear.  The thing about those kinds of dreams, in fact dreams in general, is the feeling behind them.

That feeling, for me, is that you have lost control of your life.  Even though you thought you were doing well and had it together, you find out it was all a sham and you have been knocked off the fence, thrown down a well, taken out with the garbage, or left adrift in shark-infested waters.  You have nothing, no-one, no safe place—or if there is one, you can’t get there from here.  It is a shame-based dream and gathers up all the times in my life when I actually felt that way—kind of a dream attack of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I have had one really terrible work-related experience in my life and I think at times I flash back to it.

I don’t really know the triggers.  Of course, there is stress at work and a few other places, but not any worse than I have felt at other times.  Other than the political scene. To my non-political readers you may not understand how those of us who hope every day for sane, peaceful, and caring leadership feel when it seems like that will be the last thing to happen.  It is personal; it feels like betrayal, that somewhere mean people are having the last laugh.  It seems as though everything that has been fought and worked for so many years has bit the dust, been flushed down the toilet and is blowing in the wind.  Along with the current battles on immigration, voting rights, gay marriage, a living wage, and health care for all, I hark back to the earlier fights by mine workers, suffragettes, and black people throughout our country. 

Am I exaggerating?  Is it just another bump in the road?  How much damage can be done until the next next election when the votes shift in the other direction?  I fear for a lot of things that I hope will never come to pass:  overturning the ACA; overwhelming poverty and need due to funding cuts; harsh treatment of undocumented immigrants; repression of minorities and gay people; and the logical outcome of gun-toting Americans flooding our supermarkets and playgrounds.

Any one of the above causes me to feel the dream-like sense of hopelessness while awake.  For now, I will continue to believe the average American will return to sanity and change the direction in which we are currently headed.  If that doesn’t happen, this will a nightmare for all of us from which we will not awaken.