When dark hits light

It was a lovely day on the beach yesterday. Walking and walking for miles. Doing photo after photo. All the things that make a day pleasant with sunlight dancing on the water and the sun warm on my back.

Last night though I had a dream from the past. My wife was in a bar and I was looking for her. I was wandering through rooms of a large hotel--like a maze. I finally found her and asked her to come with me as she was obviously drunk. She said that she didn't want to be with me and was fine where she was. Then she looked through me as if I was invisible. I woke up, reached for her, touched her back, and knew that she was right where she needed to be.

I haven't had the drunk dream in a long while. I used to have the dream that I had missed a heavy course, like differential equations, in college and had never attended a single class. I had to take the final exam to graduate and didn't have a chance in making up or cramming to pass.

But in recent years since she's been sober, it's been the drunk dream. Only on occasion does the old fear come out. It chased away the sunlight, the beach, the salt air and tried to cast a dark shadow over me. Touching her next to me, molding ourselves together chased that darkness away.

Today I prayed to do God's will and to stay in this day. I don't need to revisit the past, even in dreams.