Please, Don't Wake Me

I'm pretty sure I'm not dreaming.

I remember waking up that first morning after my father died.  Lying in bed, I hoped and prayed that everything that had happened the night before had just been a terrible nightmare.  It was hard to tell at first.  My bed seemed the same as always.  My brother, sleeping next to me, seemed normal too.  In my heart I knew that it wasn't just a nightmare but still, it was the only sliver of hope I could find.

Over the days and weeks and months that followed I would occasionally stop and wonder if I was really living this life or just caught in an extended dream.  Over time, I thought about it less, accepting that this was my reality.  My father was gone.  We no longer lived on a farm.  Mom worked in a nursing home.  Our family had been transformed, almost overnight, from one thing to another.  It seemed weird enough that it could have been a dream.

I recall being in college and thinking about this.  What if I am dreaming?  What if the last seven years of my life haven't yet happened?  Maybe what seems like years in this dream have only been a long night.  Perhaps I'll wake up, thirteen again and back on the farm.  Maybe I have this dream every night but I just don't remember it when I wake up.

At first it was easy to wish and hope that the dream would end and I'd get my life back.  But each new experience and friendship made it more difficult.  If my life is a dream, then waking up means sacrificing so many things I hold dear.  True, it would mean they are all just figments of my imagination, but still, I'd hate to lose them.  I love my figments.  Somewhere along the way I went from wishing I was dreaming to fearing I was dreaming.

I don't seriously think I'm dreaming.  Probably.  I recognize this was merely a coping mechanism for a boy trying to make sense of his father's unexpected death.  Yes, I'm fairly certain I am fully awake and aware.  After all, I would hope that if I were dreaming I would have given myself some sort of superpower by this point.  Now, if I step outside at lunch and I can suddenly fly, then I'll know I'm dreaming.