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David McElroy

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When doubt awakens me at dawn, my world can seem a lonely place

By David McElroy · September 25, 2021

Dreams don’t have to make sense, do they?

It was still pitch dark when I opened my eyes. I was coming out of a dream that had been a grand and confusing opera. There were snippets of obscure music. There were scenes from my real life. There were flashes of people from the past. And they were all mixed into something surreal by a frenzied film director in my head.

But what did it all mean?

I was walking through a long and dark tunnel, where I saw different people along the way, like different scenes and lessons from my life. But why these people? Why these scenes?

There was an unhappy young woman — someone I barely know in real life — and she was alone in a round iron cage. She was crying bitterly. She wasn’t begging for someone to let her out of the cage. She was begging for someone to simply listen to her heart.

I tried to speak to her — to say that I would listen — but she didn’t know I was there. She couldn’t see or hear anyone. She was dying from loneliness and unhappiness. And I felt guilt and doubt about myself that I couldn’t save her.

Then she was gone.

After I walked on in the tunnel’s darkness, I came to something which looked like a glass cylinder. Inside was what appeared to be a woman I used to know. Someone who used to love me. Her face was dull with pain and disappointment, nothing like what I’ve ever seen from her.

As I watched her silent and anguished face move, I heard words from an old song — and I knew it was about her.

I see you, now and then, in dreams
Your voice sounds just like it used to
I believe I will hear it again
God how I love you

I didn’t hear her voice, but the words said I did. Her image inside the glass cylinder remained silent, but the words of the song said I still knew her voice. They said I love her, even though I don’t even know her anymore. The contradiction made no sense, but I felt doubt about myself — once again — because I couldn’t break through to connect with her.

The next scene — much farther down the dark tunnel — was something that really happened to me several days ago. I was with two young men in an office when one of them mentioned he had just broken up with his girlfriend because she was “high maintenance.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “How was she ‘high maintenance’”?

“Dude, she constantly needed attention from me,” he said, as I smiled inwardly that someone still talked that way. “I didn’t want to see her but a couple of times a week — max — but she wanted to see me all the time and talk to me every day. I didn’t have time for that.”

The other man with us — also a young guy — nodded in agreement.

I couldn’t tell them what I really thought, because it would hurt too much to share it with men who couldn’t appreciate what I felt.

I wanted to tell them that I would give anything for the right woman to love me and want time with me in that sort of way. That’s not “high maintenance.” That’s sharing your life with someone who you love — someone who you see as an equal partner. But they were too immature to understand any of that. They wanted playthings, not partners. So I didn’t say it.

As that real-life scene ended and I walked on, the musical commentary in my operatic dream started again.

As we walk the wire
Across desperate times
Will tomorrow find us
Will you still be mine
Will we hold our child
Will he have a place
Is there a hope for the human race?

I continued walking down the dark tunnel as I heard this song. I felt more alone than ever before. Then I felt bitter tears on my cheeks.

Before I knew it, there was a lighted portion of the tunnel again, where I found another woman — seated in a chair — who I know in real life. She lives near me and I’ve gotten to know her when she’s been sitting on her porch when I’d walk by her house with Lucy at night. She’s about 55 years old and she’s unhappy with her life.

About a week ago, I stopped at her porch to say hello, but I could tell something was wrong. She said it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. She was just unhappy with her life, but she said nobody else would understand.

I told her that I did understand and I explained why.

She lost her job almost a year ago because of economic problems related to the pandemic. She’s had trouble finding work and she’s struggling financially. She’s let her ex-husband back in to her life — as she tries to figure out whether to take him back long term.

I told her that I do understand the way she feels. I told her I could tell that she got her self-worth from the job she had been so good at — and she feels worthless right now because that’s been taken away from her. I told her that her need to feel valued and needed was the only reason she was seeing her ex-husband right now. I told her she was looking for validation — and that she was willing to do almost anything to find it.

She started crying softly.

“How did you do that?” she asked through her tears. “You hardly know me and you just summed up my whole life. Everything my family doesn’t understand. Nobody understands. Not my friends or my children. But you just said it so casually like you looked right through me.”

I told her it was obvious — to anybody who was listening to her. She just stared out into space as she cried softly, but she told me it felt so good to be understood for once.

And then that scene was over and I was walking the tunnel again.

Eventually, I saw a faint bit of light in the distance ahead of me — and there was singing. This was more like the singing of a choir, but I imagined it was angels singing. The music was coming from the light ahead.

I realized I was coming to the end of the tunnel and the light was coming from outside. It wasn’t bright, but since I was in complete darkness, it was easy to see the sunrise. The choir — angels or whatever it was supposed to be — sang a hymn which I knew well from childhood.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

As I reviewed all this in my mind, I realized it wasn’t quite so dark outside my window. Lucy was surprised to see me out of bed so early, but I left the bedroom and went to the back of the house, where I opened the kitchen door leading to the back yard.

Through the branches of the trees, I saw the colors of sunrise breaking. In my mind, the words of the hymn still rang clearly as I stepped into the grass.

I felt as though everything I had just come through in the dream represented a journey — and it was structured that way as a lesson to me. What’s more, I was standing out here in my back yard on a crisp autumn morning watching the sunrise that seemed to promise a new beginning.

But standing there and watching the colors alone felt incomplete. It felt lonely. And the apparent meaning of the scenes I’d just watched — about listening and connecting with others — made me feel the strong need to be sharing it with someone else. It made me feel the need — again — to not be alone.

Maybe it means nothing. But it felt meaningful.

I just know that every element of the dream was about listening to someone — and the pain it causes when people don’t feel someone is listening, as well as the doubt I feel when I can’t connect with those who need me. If that’s the right lesson I need to draw, who do I need to listen to?

Who is it who needs to connect with me just as much as I need to connect with her? I honestly don’t know where she is. Or who she is.

Note: The first song I heard was “Treasure of the Broken Land,” which was written by the late Christian artist Mark Heard, but the version I know best was recorded by Chagall Guevara for a Mark Heard tribute album. The second song was written and recorded by Chagall Guevara for the band’s self-titled debut album. “If It All Comes True” was the last track on the album. “Holy Holy Holy” is a common hymn. It was Hymn No. 2 in the older Baptist Hymnal when I was a child.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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