1.20

I can't sleep. I drank coffee too late, and now it is past one and the computer clock in the right hand corner shows me it is getting later, and later. I used to stay up this late almost every night, when I didn't work until five or six at night. It was perfect. Now, a night owl forced into submission of the clock, of the real world, of the day job. Some can remain late-nighters and still wake up in the 5 and 6 am's. Not me. Like a child, I need my sleep. I love my sleep. My deep, unhindered sleep is a great treasure, I have come to realize. Almost every night I drop into bed and drift off to sleep almost immediately, after approximately two turns. It is practically clock work. Sometimes I will lift up a prayer, or grumble about the rude display of time on the phone alarm clock, but only for a moment, and then I am untroubled; asleep.

I used to think more before falling asleep. About my future and God and boys mostly, boys I thought were cute or important or annoying.  I would conjure up moments that might someday happen, time travel to another place, we would say things that were never actually said, sometimes he would rescue me, or something tragic would happen that instantly brought us closer together... like you see in the movies.  Movie scenes, that is what my blurry, half-dream thoughts were before sleep came on. One day I realized I didn't want to think about what wasn't really ever going to happen, and so I stopped. Like a bad habit, I quit. Quit dreaming scenarios that weren't true, involving people I might not ever meet, or might not ever be with in the way I wanted. When I quit these fantasies, I may have quit dreaming altogether. Being a realist is helpful, you aren't let down by people, expectations or dreams because you never had them. No falsehood, no fantasy, no pain. Just the truth.

Dreams could be a way we know what to do next. Those day-dreams we have are more often than not, silly, unrealistic, selfish. Those silly, selfish dreams hold true desires in them, though, I think. If you stop yourself from having them altogether, what do you consult? Books? Other people's dreams? Conferences? I have had my fill of what many people think is the right way to live, dream, exist, and change the world. So many beautiful dreams, visions, desires and goals. Holy ones. Pure ones.


 I'd like to ask God to give me the gift of dreaming back. The beautiful kind he created us to have. Maybe he'll show me something I never did know before, maybe he'll take my silly, selfish thoughts and direct them into one's more like his. Then his dreams will be my dreams, his desires, my desires. In some moments, fleeting, brief moments, the spirit shows me they are even now. And that is a lovely reality.