Hope Still Flies...

It's 6:00am on a Saturday, the one day a week now where I can really sleep in. And I'm wide awake, my mind racing from a weird dream, the substance of which compels me out of bed to process it. I'm one of those (unfortunate?) people who, once my eyes are opened, cannot get back to sleep, regardless of the time at which said eyes open. I'm generally a morning person. If I could get by without sleeping, I often think how much more productive I could be, an extra 7-8 hours a day to do with what I may.

I fought this compulsion to get up as best I could, but eventually I had to cave. I can't really explain it, but I felt like I had no choice but to get up and think about what I had dreamed. To chew on it. To break it apart for meaning, this strange amalgamation of vision and words and experiences. The details themselves are of little interest (I've already forgotten some of them) but safe to say the overarching idea was about closing the door on the last 9 months.

The last 9 months were, safe to say, generally terrible. A soul crushing search for gainful employment, coupled with a move to the middle of nowhere. Car trouble. Family struggles. Wondering if I should go back to school. Examining my vocation. Each assurance that "God has a plan for you" or "It will all work out in God's time" another stab in the heart. Rough times, in all. A life uprooted and tumbled, spilled over and poured out. It was probably the toughest consecutive 9 month stretch I've endured in a long time, if not in the entirety of my 30 years so far. I've done enough whining and venting and ranting about it to fill a novel, so I will leave it at that.

But this dream.

Man, this dream...Whatever it meant, whatever my subconscious was working through..

It felt like hope.

And I was beginning to wonder when I might feel that again.

But it is surging through me right now, and I don't remember the last time I felt this good. I know in large part it is because I now have a job, and one I believe is going to be incredibly fulfilling (though filled with more spreadsheets than I imagined a fulfilling job might) and rewarding and a way to do a LOT of good. But it's more than that.

Something's going on.

I don't know where it goes or what it looks like, but something is at work now that was lying dormant over the last few months. Maybe some grand adventure starts now. Maybe some next step in figuring out who I am. Maybe I just had a confluence of properly timed synapse firings. Whatever it is, I am interested to see where it goes.

Fittingly, as the dream drew to a close and I felt myself awaken, I began to hear (feel? imagine?) the lines from Five Iron Frenzy's "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night." For those of you unfamiliar, below are the lyrics to the song, followed by a link to listen to it. Since waking up around 6 am, I have listened to it probably 25 times.

I can't imagine a more perfect way to wake up, and know that hope still flies.


Hope still flies...

"It was a dark and stormy night last night.
Bitter dark.
Rain fell in torrents, stabbing it’s ghosts through the cold,
And straight through our hearts.

I've been waiting, in halfhearted sleep,
For a promise I half meant to keep.
Just for hoping that hope still flies,
Wipe the sleep out of our sleeping eyes.

Fog that is lifting,
The spectre of dreams we once had,
Speaks into the night,
Slumber is over, sunlight is streaming through,
Come into the light.


I've been waiting, in halfhearted sleep,
For a promise I half meant to keep.
Just for hoping that hope still flies,
To wipe the sleep out of our sleeping eyes.


I know,
Hope has not forgotten me,
I know,
I’m waking from the longest dream.
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know...


I've been waiting, in halfhearted sleep,
For a promise I half meant to keep.
Just for hoping that hope still flies,
Wipe the sleep out of our sleeping eyes.

And hope still flies
And hope still flies

And hope still flies..."