I don’t remember much about my childhood. But what does stick out to me are a couple of nightmares I used to have when I was younger. Which is weird because I don’t really remember my dreams either.

A nightmare I remember having as a young child was when I was elementary school age or younger. My family never really went on vacation, but would go visit my father’s family in Shorter, Alabama every couple of years or so.

We would usually stay either my grandparents or great aunt’s house. It wasn’t really a vacation because we wouldn’t do anything but hang around the house. And my siblings and I didn’t really know who everyone was because the family was huge, and we would see them every now and again.

This time, my brother Shem and I were staying over at my grandparents’ place and my parents were staying somewhere else. For the duration of the trip, I remember I would have these terrifying nightmares over and over.

In my nightmare, it’s a dark and really wide street or path. I’m running and chasing me is a mob of monsters, just tons of them. And I’m blind. Though I am seeing all of this as if I am looking down at the scene, seeing myself run blindly from this mob of monsters in the dark. This was a pretty intense nightmare for me at the time and I would wake up sweaty and heart pounding. I never knew what my nightmare meant.

I never had that nightmare again when we left my grandparents’ place and returned home. Even when I returned and stayed at their place again, I never had that nightmare. But I can vividly still remember that nightmare and how it made me feel, even decades later.

As I have been reflecting on my past recently, I thought about that nightmare and what it could have meant.

Now, I can easily how that nightmare mirrored my entire adult life, where I was running, just running blindly trying to outrun the mob of monsters chasing me. I didn’t know where I was going or what would happen, I just knew I had to keep running and that I couldn’t stop. And that is how I lived my life, just running from relationship to relationship to career to career, chasing everything and anything without really thinking about what the end goal was. Just keep going and outrun the monsters, or my past trauma.

I’m not ashamed in how I lived my life nor do I regret anything. I’ve done really well for myself and have had several adventures in life. However, I think it’s time to stop running blindly from the monsters and it’s time I face them. Now is the time to remember and talk openly about my trauma…to shine a light on the monsters so that there is no longer anywhere for them to hide.

Joy. That’s a word I am not very familiar with. What brings me joy? As simple as that question may seem to some people, for me that is something I have to really sit on and think about. I have no idea, but I’m excited to explore different ways to bring joy into my life.