Running.

Date: 12/22/2019

I had a dream I was running. I don’t know where I was going and I don’t know where I was. But all I knew was that I had to run. I passed people on the long road who were walking, most of them puzzling between forks or rough paths but I just ran by them and they watched me pass by, some amazed and some shocked. My feet were bare but I didn’t want to stop to get myself shoes, I didn’t want to stop at all. It hurt at first, whenever I’d get to a rough road or a rocky path the stones would dig into my feet and I didn’t see any blood but I knew I was trailing it, and sometimes it even made me want to stop to heal them. But I kept going and eventually the hard roads made my feet leathery, with callouses that let me walk on any path and not feel a thing. My lungs burned eventually as well, but I’d just take deep breaths of the cool air that was whipping my face and feel not so much refreshed as given time. My hair was tangling behind me but it felt good so I didn’t stop to untangle it. My clothes were beating against my skin, weather worn but I didn’t stop to get new ones, and when it snowed or rained I kept going despite all of it. I just kept going. I don’t know why. I guess it felt better to run. I actually even felt happy, with the wind on my face, I felt free running when everyone else sat and waited and puzzled over the path they’d take and I just ran and went with my gut. The road I was running on was always changing in the dream too. First it was an empty highway, with tall grass to one side and a field to the other, pavement cracked and faded, yellow and white lines almost washed away, the occasional pothole my only obstacle. Then it was a long but narrow dirt road, with some rocks and gravel but mostly just dirt and mud, and streams and trees and forests on all sides. Then, a more crowded city street, tall buildings rising all around me and flashing bright colors in the constant light, pavement smoother and blacker but hotter after sitting all day underneath the sun, burning my feet sometimes, and filled with people wandering around restlessly trying to find their way. I saw roads that went straight for miles and ones that forked so often it was impossible to stay in one direction, I saw roads that went up and roads that went down, I saw everything. And I passed it all by. Somehow, it felt right. I have no idea what this dream meant/means but I woke up feeling good. Feeling free, I guess, less limited. I felt more like, choices were a gift rather than a responsibility. The feeling faded but the dream stayed in my mind all day.