Waking Up
There’s a certain feeling of tightness in the chest that comes with thinking I’m going to die. It’s nothing I haven’t felt before, but still, something is distinctly different about this situation: the car screaming down the empty street as I run or ride my bike—I can’t remember which—away from it. It doesn’t matter how fast I move. I’m never fast enough. I scream, but nothing comes out. My throat burns, and I can’t breathe. And then I wake up.
One would think the knowledge that this recurring dream was only just that, a dream, would give me solace, but it doesn’t because what I also know is that, while dreams may not be tangible, they are real. Often, they’re attempts by the brain to use something it can understand to make sense of something it can’t. They’re metaphors. Driving toward me at full speed, the car is the world, a world I have all but lost control of.
With all the grace of a train barreling off the tracks, I was falling from whatever cushioned cloud I’d spent my childhood atop. There would be no more splashing in the pool with my cousins or creating Barbie doll worlds with my little brother and sister. There would be only the harsh reality I had collapsed into. For a long time, it felt like that was the end of the story, but life isn’t as simple as that.
The world is neither pretty nor nice, we know this, and it’s been a long time since I’ve expected it to be. As much as I wish I could pinpoint the moment in time when I lost the notion that it was, the realization was gradual. It is gradual, the process of learning that the world may not be welcoming, but that doesn’t mean I can’t force my way into it because I don’t need someone to hold the door for me to enter a room. I don’t have to have control over everything to make my way through life, only enough to keep my boat from capsizing as I navigate stormy waves.
The better I can maintain that balance in life, the better I can understand myself, and the better I understand myself, the better I will understand others. I can see their joy and sadness, hate and love, and relief and pain because I’ve felt it too. Once, I was the patient, so now, I will become the doctor. I will give others the guidance and love I would never have made it without.
Some of my favorite words spoken by Steve Rogers to Tony Stark are this: “The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl all over you.” They remind me that being the person who sits back while the world spins is one of my biggest fears. The future is only bright if we are willing to light the way into it, and part of that is learning there is more strength in forging ahead despite the unknown than in blocking the path and trying to wrestle with it. The car will not stop, but I can jump onto its hood and let it take me home. It may have the force and momentum, but it doesn’t have to win when I’m the one with the wits. I know that now, and I like to think that’s why I no longer have that dream.
