Reoccurring Dream

Reoccurring dream;  

there's a reoccurring dream I have, fairly often, and more of a nightmare really, made all the more frightening as it's an actual replay of an event during my early 20's, a stupid episode from my days of heavy drinking. I won't go into detail here, it still bothers me that I would endanger the lives of others by my actions back then, getting behind the wheel and driving in my stupidly blind condition. At that point I didn't even consider my drinking a problem, not yet anyway, as that would take a few more years of risky situations to myself and others, as well damaging so many of my relationships.  

but that would come, eventually, entirely by grace.

by all odds, and my reoccurring dreams confirms this every time it plays through my mind - I shouldn't have survived that night, worse still, I see each point where I could have harmed another, taken a life by sheer selfishness and stupidity. No reason, people would have died for the sake of me going to a party, or in other situations going to a bar. This particular has been burned into my memory, becoming one of the few reoccurring dreams I have, my only real nightmare. 

yet, I survived, having made it home with a wrecked car, and no other consequences paid. Back to drinking the very next night, and for years after. The question I ask myself is why did I survive, how did I escape harming others, that I so easily could have taken someone's life, many people actually - was there a reason, or purpose for me to be spared that horror? 

all these years later and I still have no answers. 

I don't believe there are any.

the truth is, as I see it anyway, I wasn't spared by divine action, saved with a specific purpose in mind. I was lucky, that's all,  and many aren't. I don't know why. It would be easy to say that there was some grand design involved, that I was meant for something greater. But what a great disservice that does to all those whose lives were taken by the stupidity of others. Every life is precious, even those of the stupid and ungrateful, the undeserving, every single life. 

even mine. 

my reoccurring dream plays out in excruciating detail, relived entirely, and I wake up unsure of my actual place in time. It's horrifying, not any less so now then it was years before. Decades later, many years sober, I think how easily I left drinking behind, just slipping from my life as a worn garment that no longer needed to be worn. It was that simple, and yet, someone could have dies for something so worthless, or I could have survived with guilt for the stupidity of my actions. Yet done of that happened, I simply stopped drinking when it was time, and I do believe it was through the grace of meditation, having reached a point where I no longer needed whatever it was alcohol seemed to provide. 

and still that reoccurring dream.

So here's the summary, such as it is - I don't know why anything happens, my life unfolds as a mystery, continuously, and each moment is gifted to my curiosity and surprise. Once I drank, and I seemed to have little regard for life, my own and that of others, my actions and behavior risked the well being of anyone close to me. I no longer drink. I am drastically different now, and there was no real attempt for me to turn my life around. Everything changed as everything changed - that's the only way that I'm able to explain it. None of this is taken for granted, I am grateful to be alive, for having been spared the possibility of injuring another, or taking someones life. What I see is that life doesn't have to follow a grand design, following a purpose or even having a specific meaning. It's enough to have this moment, an entire lifetime being lead to right here, now, and the miracle of a breath taken.

just this breath, 

and with this...my reoccurring dream is over.

~

Peace, Eric