Hope

I dreamt last night that I was dating a much younger man.

A boy, really.

But there was nothing the least bit salacious about it, though the boy in my dream was only about 18 years old.

I was the same age in my dream. I was tall and lean and beautiful and infused with a feeling of strength and power so vivid that even now it hovers tantalizingly close, just outside daylight’s grasp.

And it was summertime and we were at the lake and we were surrounded by sun-kissed friends and the August air was thick with possibility and yearning. And if I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I can smell the air still and it moves me to tears because it smells so impossibly sweet.

I have stress in my life right now. I have adult problems, heavy and complicated: problems that will be resolved, but only by putting my 38-year-old head down and slogging grimly through them.

And so it was with a heavy heart that I awoke from my summer dream this cold, dark February morning. It was with an exquisite ache that I felt summertime slip from my memory and disappear into the gloom.

But summer will be back, of this I am certain.

Because even as I shivered and my bones protested the early hour, a tiny ray of sunshine beckoned me forward.