... They are the most
frightening moments of my
life,
every morning. It's the part where my world
collides with this one, and I need to figure out where I am, here or
in there.
All too often, I'm not sure. This morning, her soft skin is not next to me to give me the
comforts of her
embrace; no pardon from what I must undertake...
A race of
thoughts, a white
flash, and then a horrible twitch, like a thousand batteries discharging into my veins. Then it comes: my first breath of this world; a night's lucid
immortality fades into my
mortal shell... A gasp for oxygen as I am forcefully snapped from my haven. My
vision, my first sense of the world, fails me, part due to the night's
atrophy, and part due to
my own failings. The world settles in, the din of
life grows louder in my ears, forced to take note and to begin to
march to it's beat.
I lay there in my gentle cradle, still
disoriented from the awakening, aware of this world, but
dreading it's full return.
Her gentle breathing and faint
heartbeat not with me this time; those gentle reminders of a million miles walked together in my dreams, now gone.
Nervous and on edge from the rude
departure, I have no choice but to tend to my needs. My body aches from a day of exercise; I could find relief if only my legs would join me in my awakened state, but they seem to betray so early.
The worst part of the waking up process begins now; the day and it's trip back from the
reaches of my mind begin to wash away my
footprints, like
a traveler landing on shore. My dreams the
night before become fuzzy; the faces not as
crisp, the names down to people, the words down to ideas. All is lost to the cruel
acclimation.
It seems the deeper I sleep, the more I dread those first few
minutes. My dreams are a
wand of color in my hand every night, my destination under my
control. A night's work, only to be dashed in the first five minutes by a world
unlike my own.
Even though the destination is dreaded, the
trip every night makes it
worthwhile. The warm embrace of my bed yields to my dreams shattered by the dawn, and yet I look forward to the
sleep, knowing that I will be refreshed body, mind, and
spirit; however
eventually... Those first few minutes are life's rude way of tugging back on the leash of this
mortal coil... one day I will escape it all, but until then, I must walk these steps, looking back at my
footprints in the sand.