The same dream came to me on many nights. I figured that because of its reoccurrence it must have been of some significance to my waking life. It was the same every time. It must have been a sign of some sort. So vivid, that I can still remember it from my childhood. It would be of a paper machete tower. It stretched high up to the heavens and I would be climbing it. Just me, up the stairs of a massive newspaper skyscraper. I didn’t know why I was climbing so high either, it just seemed like the thing to do with a giant paper machete tower. The higher I got the more I thought about the stability of the tower and slowly lost interest in just enjoying the journey. I became more concerned with the tower itself and not just simply the childlike joy of conquering it. The more uneasy I got, the more it seemed as if it were swaying gently in the wind. The wind grew and the tower shook more. The wind rose with gusto as worry became fear. I had forgotten the joy completely at this point and the heaven-scraping edifice had begun to seize violently. My weight was too much and it had started to crumble. I had nowhere to run. Huge chunks of the building fell down on my head and the paper buckled under my feet. And then it would fall and I’d wake up in a hot sweat. I knew it meant something, it had to. I wanted to know but I lacked the knowledge at that age to analyze my own mind. So the dream became lost in my memory bank, filed away somewhere in my childhood. A mystery to never be solved, or so I thought.


Recently, I’ve been having some trouble sleeping. I don't know what it is that has suddenly brought rise to this. I'm plenty cool until I actually lay down to sleep. Then my heart rate goes up and I'm suddenly like a hundred and fifty degrees. I don't understand. I had one about a big steel water tower last night. It bore a striking resemblance to the one that had visited me so often as a little child. I remember seeing this water tower in a fenced off area but the fence was knocked down and I was running towards it. There was something on the ground I was trying to escape; I know this because the ground was like an urban war zone. It was a city street but it was completely ransacked and there was a sense of urgency and chaos that I needed to get away from. I tried to climb up the ladder along the side of the tower but with every rung I climbed I became more and more terrified of the height I was climbing to. My fears of what might happen had halted me in my tracks yet again. I ended up clinging to the bars and not being able to move up or down. I held on for dear life but the wind kicked up and, with my mind so racked with fear, I couldn’t hold on. I fell. I woke up kicking and sweating again.


I realize now that I was unable to achieve my goals because I was too busy worrying. Thinking about all the bad things that could happen, caused them to happen. I don’t want to be left on the ground or end up trying and falling back down again. I want to do. Not fall. Not try. I’m going to get to the top of wherever I’m heading, be it a water tower in a city or a paper machete tower to the sky. And if the wind decides to pick up, I’ll hold on tight and keep pushing forward. And if that water tower decides to crumble, I’ll hold it together. And this time, I’m going to enjoy the journey.