I woke up before my alarm clock went off this morning. It wasn't because I was well-rested. Well-rested still isn't something I experience very much. I woke up because my body is kind enough to wake me up when I get too scared in my dreams.
My dream's beginning is fuzzy in my memory. I think that it began with my ex boyfriend, but then he morphed into my ex husband. We were going to have dinner together to try to work some things out between us. Our teenage daughter was there too. It was at a place that I don't recognize. I went up to the drink machine to get my pop and I told the waitress that I didn't know how long we would be there or if we would even eat. I was really uneasy about how it was going to go. She told me that if we needed to leave before we ate to just do it and she wouldn't charge us.
A moment later my ex husband came up the stairs yelling at me about something. I don't know what he was upset about.
Then the dream shifted and we were outside. He was coming at me and I shot at him. I think I missed 3-4 times and hit him once in the arm, which only served to make him more angry. What was worse, he had a gun too and now I was out of bullets. I remember hoping that someone had called the police because people were shooting at each other on a main road. He got into his truck and began to chase me in it. As I ran and tried to find somewhere to hide, I prayed that the police would get there before I died.
Then I woke up.
I woke up surprised because although I had lived in fear of him showing up to kill me every day for at least four years, he has been incarcerated for a little over a year now. I didn't realize that fear of him killing me is still so alive and well in my mind.
