Falling Awake

5:48am is a heckuva a time to decide to start a blog. Especially when you've been up since 4am with nightmares, and finally gave up, got up, made coffee and sit bleary-eyed.

In my dream, my son's best friend was murdered, and it was my fault, really, because I let them go somewhere without really checking out what they were doing. They were going off to play good guys, really good and holy guys in clerical collars. Out to a park to talk to the dangerous people living there. Al was killed when he went in the tunnel. And there were other components -- my oldest children's dad, Carman's dad -- both of them were in the dream and wouldn't help Carman when he needed help.

There's more, but this is enough. It seems to me that I am feeling a tremendous burden being a single parent whose father is almost completely out of the picture. But why now? I've been a single parent for oh so many years. Most years. And neither father has been around much, so I'm used to shouldering the responsibility on my own. I wonder if it's age? I've turned 50, and this youngest child of mine is over a decade younger than his siblings. Perhaps my own mortality creeps into this. Perhaps I'm afraid I won't be here long enough. Perhaps it's because we're scanty on relatives, with both parents growing up as only children, and both my parents now dead. Maybe life seems more tenuous than I consciously realize. Maybe it's that living paycheck to paycheck existence of mine.

Actually now that I type all those factors out I realize my life is rather tenuous in age, finances, people to lean on. All I can think to do is pray more....