A Dream I HAD, Day 325

I used to "have" a reoccurring dream/ nightmare. It began when I was a child.The nightmare went like this: I was driving my mother's blue extended cab Ford F150 pickup truck with my siblings riding along inside. It was scary driving that huge thing especially being that I was just a kid and so small so I was terrified at the task when all of the sudden a huge body of water would appear in front of the truck and I'd drive all of us kids right down into it. I'd wake up once we hit the water but I always knew we died. The dream morphed over the years. In my dreams I've driven every car I ever owned into a huge body of water that suddenly appeared around a bend, or after emerging from a thick forest, or from behind a building, or off a cliff that came out of nowhere. I died all but one of the times. (one time before I hit the water I popped out of a worm hole into a school building) Actually only one time I wasn't driving. One time the youth pastor was driving a bus packed full of youth groups kids and he drove us into the water. That one was really weird. We all died. I remember feeling horrible for leaving Jesse behind, all alone (he was in a different vehicle on the same coarse we had taken). And just before I woke up from the watery death obituaries for each person who'd died in the crash scrolled quickly through my mind on a black backdrop much like credits to a movie.

I always thought that dreamed stemmed from two roots. My Dad's always been somewhat of an instigator. When we were kids we played baseball in the front yard with the neighbor kids all the time. I was the designated pitcher while everyone else took turns batting and running and chasing the ball across the street into the neighbors yard. My dad used to come home from work and drive full speed into the front yard like he was going to run us all over. I'm absolutely certain he made some of those neighbor kids pee their pants at some point in time. We'd run frantically for the concrete front porch steps knowing that he couldn't run us down if we were standing on them. We knew it was only a joke but after his vehicle came to a stop at the edge of the steps some of the neighbor kids would run home crying. He also sang songs with our names inserted into them or he'd call us by a weird obnoxious version of our name. He did it to our friends too. For some reason the songs seemed funny to everyone except the person who's name was in it. He tortured my brother Matt most of all with those songs. Additionally he took the family for drives ALOT. Really that's the only time I remember him actually spending with us when we were kids. We drove to other cities and looked at houses that were being built, we ate at little smoke filled dives, and we always ended up at the water during some part of the drive. He thought it was funny to drive really fast down the boat ramp and stop just before we hit the water. It wasn't funny.

I'm proud to say that I've traveled a bit. I've driven to Seattle and then to the Pacific Ocean. My friends and I have taken joy rides to the UP, Niagra Falls, Kentucky, Tennessee. I've driven to Chicago on several occasions. On a long drive at some point in time there's bound to be an awkward bridge crossing over water with really revealing railing, or a road with a very narrow shoulder thats set right down into the water that spans out on either side of it. I've known no greater fear than having to cross such paths. For some reason I fear that I will lose control of the vehicle and end up in the water. The entire time I spend crossing the living nightmare I imagine how I might be able to escape from the sinking vehicle to save my life. I've always thought of this as the second root to my dream. The first is obviously my father. Then naturally the second would be a fear of water (although there's a good possibility that fear is actually because of my father).

Yesterday I wrote (and I apologize for the long excerpt): "I can blame the defective annoying me on my parents, on their divorce, on my dads anger and absence, on my moms lack of self confidence and reservation, on them unknowingly asking me to forfeit childhood at age 10; asking me unknowingly to take on the role of caretaker, housekeeper, cook, peacemaker... a role I was incapable of rising to and one that pounded an overwhelming identity of failure over my life. I know food as comfort. I can rely on chocolate, sugar, pizza and pasta to soothe the pain of reality; the reality that I am not good enough, that I'll never be good enough and that it's my fault everything sucks. I can't be ok without food. That's my march to the watering hole. That's the path life has taught me to follow. I can tell my heart otherwise but it's ingrained in me and it's a tooth and nail fight to tell the little monster anything to the contrary." And this morning I remembered the reoccurring nightmare. I can blame the imagery on my dad pretending to drive our vehicle into the lake but I realize now that the symbolism is much more important. I "have" an ingrained fear and expectation for failure. I identify myself as someone who is incapable of completing the journey. When I was a kid trying desperately to take care of my siblings I used to dream of driving them to their deaths. When I reached my young adult years; years overrun by depression and lack of confidence I'd constantly drive myself into that watery grave. The worst part was that I was completely incapable of remedying the situation. I never drove off the path I was on. The water always came out of nowhere when I was advancing at an incredibly fast pace. There was no possible way to avoid it.

I say that I "used to" have a reoccurring dream because I've been dreaming some version of the dream fairly regularly ever since I was a kid but I don't remember the last time it plagued me. In fact it's probably been at least a year. Today I'm willing to say that the reason I feel a constant push to accomplish, the reason I have a never ending list of chores unraveling in my brain at all times, the reason I beat myself up incessantly for failing to meet all of my expectations and the reason I am so incredibly hard on myself is 1.) I'm trying to break out of the mold, the only way I believe to be true, believe to be possible, believe to be natural; I'm trying not to fail and 2.) I'm setting myself up for failure the only way I believe to be true, believe to be possible, believe to be natural. That's my march to the watering hole or if I may say my route to a watery grave. I can see it so clearly now.

BUT I haven't had the dream in at least a year. I believe that woven into the fiber of my being is a truth which states "I am a failure." But I believe that God, that Jesus, that the Holy Spirit has given me a ticket to get out of jail free and I no longer have to be a marred vessel. I no longer have to be who this world made me to be. I no longer have to fail or fight against it. I gave up trying to redeem myself and now (at least consciously) I give up trying to perfect myself. I'm ok. And I stopped having that dream awhile ago.

"If anyone comes to Me and does not cast aside his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:26