Night of panic and little sleep shows chaos of finding my way

By David McElroy · July 22, 2019

There were two little girls with me and we were walking on a highway with a bunch of other people. Everybody was focused on escape, so we moved as quickly as we could. It was night and the only light was from the stars.

I don’t know what we were running from or why we couldn’t travel in cars. The younger of the girls was about 3 years old. I know she was my daughter. The other was her sister, but I don’t think I was her biological father. The older girl was about 9.

The younger girl wanted me to carry her, but I finally had to put her down to walk on her own. We were exhausted.

And then something under parts of the road started getting hot and turning red, as though there was molten lava underneath. I dropped something else that I had been carrying so I could pick up both girls. People were screaming and panicking all around us.

But I had to get these girls back to their mother.

Last night was long and confusing. There was a lot going on — and it all seemed very real to me.

It was just a series of dreams, but they seemed to go on and on. My Apple Watch tells me that I slept a total of four hours and 40 minutes last night, but it didn’t seem like that much. The night seemed to go on forever, because I kept waking up in panic and sweat.

Everything seemed to center around these two little girls being in danger — along with other people around us — and I was struggling to keep them safe and find our way back to their mother. I have an idea who the mother was, but I can’t be certain.

I’m a little claustrophobic — which I discovered the first time I needed to have an MRI years ago — so one of the dreams left a scary imprint.

The girls and I were going through a long underground tunnel. There were other people taking the same route, trying to escape from the same danger. There were concrete and steel structures all around us, but I don’t know what this place was. Maybe a sewer or water treatment facility? I just know it wasn’t designed for people.

I felt panic from being packed so tightly with other people without feeling as though there was a way to get out. I heard a distant rumble and I suddenly knew what was about to happen. There was a massive flood of water heading through this passageway toward us. I knew there was no place for most people to go, but I knew there were small concrete rooms with doors that appeared every hundred yards or so.

I picked up the two girls and started pushing my way rapidly through people. I had to get us to one of those rooms before others figured it out. I didn’t want anyone to die, but my job was to protect these two girls. Nothing else mattered.

I got to one of those small rooms and pulled the girls inside, turning a large screw-like device — similar to what you see on doors of submarines — to lock us inside. In the darkness, I realized I could see a little bit of light from stars above, so I knew this room vented upward to the outside.

I heard the rush of water in the passage outside. People were screaming for a moment and then all I heard was the massive rush of water as the people were silenced. And then I realized that something — maybe an automated system — was starting to open the door which protected us.

I climbed onto an iron ladder which went up the vent shaft. I had the girls hold onto me and I started trying to climb. But the water filled the room below before I could climb all the way. When I felt the water coming to hit us, I grabbed the girls tightly and told them to hold onto me — no matter what happened.

The force of the water pushed us upward through the shaft. We kept banging into the sides and into the railing, but I didn’t let go of the girls and they didn’t let go of me.

The water pushed us through the opening at the top. We were lucky there was no grate at the opening. We seemed to be at the edge of a vast lake and I pulled myself and the girls onto land. We just sat on the dry land for a few minutes — drenched and exhausted. Both girls held onto me and the younger one cried.

“Daddy, I’m scared,” the younger girl said as she held tightly to my neck.

It went on like this all night. It was always the same two girls. We were always trying to escape one mortal danger or another. We were always trying to find their mother. Everything was confusing. Everything was terrifying. But I wasn’t going to let anything happen to these girls. I would have given my life to save them.

I wasn’t in great shape at work today and I’m eager to get to sleep now. I don’t know what to make of my long night, but it felt — in some metaphorical way — like Jacob wrestling with the angel all night in the Hebrew book of Genesis.

Something in me is wrestling with change in my life.

Something in me is eager to take care of these girls. There was something strongly symbolic about that, almost as though something was testing my resolve. (There were references made to a son, too, but I never saw him, so I’m confused about that part. The girls were the ones I dealt with.)

In the story of Jacob, it’s not clear who he wrestles all night. We commonly say it was an angel, but other interpretations say it was God. Jacob doesn’t win the match. In fact, he’s injured in the all-night confrontation. But he refuses to give up — and he forces the angel (or whoever it is) to give him a blessing. And that’s when he gets his new name — Israel.

As far as I know, the story of Jacob is just a handy metaphor for me. I wasn’t wrestling an angel or God. I suppose I’m wrestling something inside myself. An exhausted part of me wants to give up, but there’s a fiercely determined part of me which will not give up on these two girls.

I need to protect them. I need to reunite them with their mother. Whatever that means.

There’s change going on inside me. I’m not sure what it all means. I’m not happy to have spent a night in panic and I’m not happy to try to work today through my exhaustion.

The only thing I hold onto is my certainty that I did what I was supposed to do. I protected these precious girls. I kept anything bad from happening to them.

I kept them safe. And they knew that I loved them.

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Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

Modern culture is going insane. The latest evidence comes from the effort to redefine children’s author Dr. Seuss as a racist whose books should be banned. Why? Because a few images in those books don’t meet modern political standards. The drawing you see here is one of those “dangerously racist images,” and it comes from the Dr. Seuss classic, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The book catalogs all the wild diversity seen by a child on one street, including the offending drawing of a Chinese boy. What’s racist about it? Apparently, it was racist to show the boy eating rice, wearing a funny hat, using chopsticks and (worst of all) having eyes represented by a slit. (The bearded man near him has dots for eyes, but that’s apparently OK.) In other words, the stereotypes are considered racist today. (Oddly, the culture warriors who fret over such things are never concerned if a white southerner is depicted as ignorant trash living in a trailer. Some stereotypes are great, especially if the left hates those people anyway.) Theodore Geisel — the name of the real-life Dr. Seuss — was a product of his time and nobody at that time would have seen any of this as racist. Using stereotypes and exaggerations is how artists depict differences in simple ways. You can argue that it’s better to achieve the end result in a different way, but it’s insane to pretend that everybody from the past should have his work erased because it doesn’t match the preferences of modern leftists. Unfortunately, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books has caved to the insane people — and six of his popular works will no longer be published. The world has simply gone insane.

Tyler Barnes will never be a basketball star. He probably peaked as a star high school player in Louisville, Ky. But for the last four years, he’s been a walk-on player for the University of Alabama. He’s a chemical engineering major with lots of academic honors who rides the bench because he loves being part of a team. He sometimes gets into games with a minute or two to go, but only if Alabama has a big lead. This Saturday, it was senior day for Alabama basketball, so it was his last chance to play in Coleman Coliseum. Alabama Coach Nate Oats says that one of the team starter’s came to him an hour before the game started — and fellow senior Alex Reese asked Oats if Barnes could start in his place for this one game. Even though the game was huge for Alabama, which is ranked No. 6 in the country and trying to wrap up an SEC title, Oats agreed. Barnes started and played the first three minutes, grabbing what was only the fourth rebound of his career and missing his only shot. Barnes has a great future as an engineer, but you’ll never again hear from him as a basketball player. For three shining minutes Saturday, though, he was a starter for a top-10 college basketball team — and his parents were in the stands from Kentucky to see it. There’s a lot of ugliness in college basketball right now, but this story makes me happy.

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

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