Blue skies

I just had the best dream I’ve ever had. I was flying.

I know it’s not unusual—people have flight dreams all the time. But not me. Instead, I have crazy-ass dreams that unfold like blockbuster Hollywood movies complete with large casts, scene changes, and full-on plots. I’m talking dreams that require a costume department and breaks for lunch. Sometimes I have to solve a mystery or diffuse a bomb. Sometimes I visit a favorite place or spend time with someone I care about. When I’m especially lucky, I get to be someone else for the night—I’ve even been a man. How cool is that? It’s not often we get the chance to step directly into someone else’s shoes. I love my dreams. But, until now, I’ve never flown.

It was glorious.

I flew like my brain and body were built for it—like it was part of my soul. I could fly fast or slow. I could hover. I could make long, lazy circles or dart and dash in tight turns. There was wind against my face but no resistance to slow me down. Nothing made flying difficult or challenging. It was simple. It was natural. It was peaceful.

I was at ease.

As I dreamed, I was able to introspect. Seriously, people, it was like a middle of the night therapy session. And its content included a who’s who of common themes I’ve been working on for years—controlling fear, rediscovering the power of solitude, and finding peace.

I was wearing some kind of propulsion suit and kept reminding myself that I didn’t know how the suit worked. But it didn’t matter. How I was flying was unimportant. I was flying! I hate heights and looking down at the tiny little roads and houses far, far below, I kept thinking about how strange it was that I wasn’t afraid. But I wasn’t. I had no fear.

I was free.

Anyone who has lived with fear as their constant companion for months or years at a stretch will tell you that its absence is like a revelation. When the cold, metallic fingers of fear are no longer clenched around your throat, and you can finally breathe again, you don’t want to walk, you want to dance—or to fly.

There were other people with me as I flew, but I felt disconnected from them and completely detached from civilization or real life. My dream lacked a normal range of color, which is seriously odd. I love color; I live for color. But, except for the blue of the sky, everything else was brushed in shades of brown, white, black, and gray. Yet nothing was muted or flat—it was vibrant. I flew over an enormous city and canyon after canyon, including one so big, I was sure it must be the Grand Canyon. But as I gazed down, I wondered why it didn’t feel like Arizona. It felt like California. Even though I couldn’t name the places beneath me, I knew them. They weren’t foreign—they felt like home.

I was content.

I was consumed by flying. It captured every bit of of my attention. I was immersed in what I was doing, seeing, and feeling—nothing else mattered.

I wasn’t lonely. I wasn’t afraid.

I was at peace.

Unpacking the details of the dream, I can see how it’s connected to my current life. I’m thinking, acting, and feeling an awful lot like the person I remember being before my world imploded. I’m no longer lonely. I’m comfortable around others or by myself. I’m content. I’m able to focus on projects and experiences again. I’m at peace. I dance in the kitchen while I wait for my morning coffee to brew.

When you are afraid, you are lonely.

But perhaps the most important link between the dream and my life is the one about fear. I’m no longer afraid all the damn time. I’m not looking over my shoulder. I’m not getting up to investigate every small noise I hear in the dark hours of the night. I’m not screaming myself awake. And this is huge. When you are afraid, you are lonely. You cannot be content. You cannot be at peace. When you are afraid, your fear response jumps to the front of the line and takes priority over everything else.

Trauma changes us. We can never again be exactly who we were before the bad things happened. And that’s ok. Some changes should be expected, and even embraced, as we move through our lives. But others can have a negative impact on our quality of life and we should fight back against those changes with everything we’ve got. My goal was never to return to exactly who I used to be, but I knew I had to eliminate the changes that were making my life a living hell.

Trauma recovery is like a long, winding path. Once we’ve walked far enough that the horrors we experienced are no longer an immediate threat to our safety, we may start to think about how we can recover and heal. It’s not easy. The path is unpredictable and can be hard to follow. But if we keep trudging along through all of the dark and twisty spots that trigger us along the way, if we climb the boulders and jump the chasms, if we find the people and programs and tools that help ease our way, if we keep going, then eventually we won’t need the path anymore.

And that, my friends, is when we finally get to spread our wings and take to the skies.

Today’s photos come from one seriously magical day with Mr. C. In 2015, we visited the UK for my parents’ 50^th anniversary extravaganza. The two of us took off from the rest of our party and spent an afternoon immersed in our very own nature documentary on Scotland’s Isle of May. Surrounded by more than 46,000 pairs of breeding puffins, terns, and other seabirds, it was one of the best damn days of my entire life.

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Today’s post is dedicated to the reader who always asks if I’m ok when it’s been too long since my last post. Thanks, friend! I appreciate you. Truly.