Nightmares R Us . . .

I'm stumbling around a blackened room searching for the light switch on the table lamp next to my bed. I turn it, I can feel the shade change position on my forearm, but the light won't turn on. I hear the phone ringing, and fumble around to find it, there is a friend speaking to me, but her words are muffled by the static on the line. I ask her not to hang up. I tell her I can't turn the light on, but the phone goes dead in my hand. I feel my way around the bed to the night stand on the other side. I realize that I am in my bedroom on Cherry Hill, and there is only one light, one night stand and I'm gripped with panic that I will always be in the dark. The phone rings again and I hear my daughters voice and for a moment I feel safe. I have had a haunting feeling that some one or something is in the room with me, the same way you know a cat is in the room, in the dark, stalking you, even though you can't see it. But the phone call. I cling to her voice and as I begin speaking and feeling safe I am engulfed from behind by something evil. A presence fluid and heavy, made up of darkness, but blacker than the night. I am being choked from behind by a shadow. I wake up sweating and turn on the light, and I am relieved to awaken from the dream.

But what if dreams are real? What if I can't wake up? What if this is where you go when you die? What if all I will ever do is fumble around in the dark even when it's light? These thoughts and many more like them keep me in fear of the dark, they keep me in fear of turning off the light and going back to sleep. What if? What if? And I wonder, how can I change the dream. How can I turn on the light in the darkness of my mind. Being alone in bed doesn't help. And I desperately wish that I had someone to turn to who would make it all go away. Someone I could grab onto in the middle of the night when the bad dreams come, when the black shadow chokes me into wakefulness, but that isn't reality is it? And for once I let myself feel vulnerable. I allow myself to cry. I allow myself to be scared and alone in a dark place. I turn off the light and invite the fear to swallow me whole. I toy with it! I dare it to take me away. I ask it to give me it's best shot. I tell it I won't be it's victim anymore. I look it square in the face and I see myself. It isn't evil, it's just another part of who I am, another part of myself who needs love and care and attention. It woke me up in the middle of the night so I would notice what I've neglected. I make a promise to myself that I won't do that anymore...