Live to the Max

Like most people, I’ve had the occasional nightmare.

Each time I would startle myself awake before realizing I am safe and sound in my bed.

I’d sigh in relief as my awareness was transported back to the real world where all is well.

The sense of fear and panic would melt away as the view of my ceiling fan would come into focus, and the warmth of my husband’s arms would embrace me.

“It was only a dream,” I would say to calm myself.

But it’s not like this anymore. My world has been rearranged.

Now, my nightmare is not a manifestation of my sleeping, subconscious mind.

Instead, my nightmare is now my wide-awake, daily existence.

Sleep no longer looms as the portal to my nightmare.

Instead, the portal to my nightmare reopens everyday at dawn, ushered in by the shrill melody of my alarm.

Each morning, I reach towards the bedside table, now lined with anxiety pills, to silence the noise.

I settled back into my pillow and reorient myself, “This is real. He is gone,” I say as I watch my ceiling fan circle overhead.

This crushing, mental realignment has become part of my morning routine.

A routine that has occurred 219 consecutive mornings, and my heart still breaks, all over again, every…single…time.

I turn to place my feet on the ground, and as I stand to face the day I think, “The nightmare continues.”

My shoulders feel an instant weight fall upon them.

It is incredibly heavy to stand under the weight of this reality.

I take one step forward, and then another, and another, until the day finally comes to a close.

I remain dumbfounded at how I miraculously function in these nightmarish conditions.

As I crawl back to bed for sleep, I stupidly wonder to myself, “How long will life be this way?”

I answer back in the same scolding tone I use each time I must reorient myself, “Forever! This is forever!”

This nightmare will never end, it is not something I can endure like a temporary pain.

There is no waking up from this.

It is forever.

It is real.

He is gone.

Everything is rearranged…inside-out…upside-down…backwards…off-center…

There is no waking up.

This is real life…this is my nightmare… and it is indeed forever.