“Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.” LaoTzu

We were married on July 2nd. Like any other bride, I had hopes and dreams of my life with my husband based on the model of my parent’s marriage. I didn’t see how hugely different the dynamics were until much later. Now it is easy to see. Letting go of dreams when you’ve lost the ability to dream a new one is difficult. So you live in the dream you had, no matter it changed from your original version and became distorted and unrecognizable.

He was in my dreams again. But he is not berating me, or ignoring me, pushing me, yelling at me. Shooting me. He is loving me. He did that, treated me tenderly and affectionately in between. Normal would resume. Unaware, I allowed myself to be lulled into a sense of security, and the hope that we would be okay. I held on to those times as some validation our life together was not an entire lie.

I once saw a girl hit from behind by a big wave. It hit her so hard it knocked her out. The rescue squad carried her out of the water and off the beach on a backboard, suspecting the wave broke her neck.

I am reeling from the force and power of the unexpected wave of my nighttime dream; a wave that hit while I was looking away and beginning to relax and live my life. It reminds me of life with him. Floating on the water until seemingly from nowhere, a wave would crash over me and drag me under, disoriented and trying to find the surface again.

I tell the children, when they have bad dreams, it was just a dream. I have no broken back or neck. There is no rescue squad to pull me out of the water in these early morning hours, to assess my injuries, tend to me. It is my spirit that is broken. The dream is not just a dream, it is real. I am alone in this ocean.