Most of the times, I have weird dreams. Last night, I had a good ol’ fashioned nightmare. And it’s still bothering me today.
I went to bed early last night. Life has kicked the crap out of me lately, leaving me wiped out physically and mentally. I turned on the alarm, (set for 3:58 a.m.) and rested my head on the pillow. I was asleep before it could get warm.
And then it happened.
I was in house recording a TV show. A popular band was there and I was emceeing the event and talking to one of the members. But then the house morphed into a hospital waiting room. Soon, I found myself in surgery. A female doctor (who I didn’t recognize) was talking to me. “Your cancer has come back.” I felt the pinch of the needle as she numbed the area and began to cut at my flesh. She kept reassuring me that the spot was small — but I knew I was in for the fight of my life. I heard her giving me my test results but before I could find out my fate, I woke up.
3:56 a.m.
Exhausted, I turned off the alarm. My workout would have to wait a day. I needed some more sleep.
But I laid there shaking. On this day before Ash Wednesday, I faced my worst nightmare — thankfully just as a nightmare. But I kept reciting, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” over and over in my head. I was reminded of my own mortality. And I kept thinking about all the things that have been hammering me lately. Those things that have left me angry and disappointed. I wrote them mentally on a list in my mind.
And then released them.
I was given a gift 13 years ago when the third doctor found and removed my malignant melanoma. Being depressed, angry or afraid is squandering that gift.
Life is too short. And it took a particularly nasty nightmare to remind me of that.