I had a bad dream last night.
One of those that feels so real you wake up still half inside it. I don’t remember exactly how it started, just that something happened and there was a fight. Then I was driving. Alone.
The road turned into this endless desert highway. Flat, bright, empty. The kind of silence that hums. I remember the wheel jerking in my hands, a sudden dip in the road, and then the van slammed down hard. The whole front crunched in. My phone shattered. I couldn’t move.
I was pinned there, staring out at nothing. No cars. No people. Just sand and sky and that feeling of being completely stuck. Like I could scream for hours and no one would ever hear me.
When I woke up, I was crying. Real tears, shaky breathing, throat sore, heart pounding so hard it hurt. It took me a minute to figure out where I was. To remind myself I was safe. That it was just a dream.
But it didn’t feel “just” like anything. It felt like my brain was showing me something I’ve been too afraid to say out loud … That deep, quiet fear of being stranded in my own life. Of working so hard to build something out of the wreckage and still worrying it could all collapse.
I think that’s what the crash was about. Not the van itself, but the fear of losing the progress I’ve made. Of hitting some hidden dip and realizing I’m right back where I started.
Still, I woke up. That counts for something. My mind didn’t let me stay stuck there. It pulled me back before it got worse, like it knew I’d had enough.
I sat there for a while after, breathing. Feeling for the walls of the van next to my bed. Reminding myself, this is now, that was then.
And maybe that’s the point. I’ve already survived the hardest parts. Even when it feels like I’m crashing, I somehow wake up. I always wake up.
