It feels as if the dream has died, and the time has come for me to face the facts and realize the truth of the matter.

I no longer see a perfect American future; a perfect wife, a perfect marriage, perfect kids, a perfect job, in the perfect suburbs, perfectly happy.

No this dream has died.

The weight of the world is too much.

The giants before me have toppled over without a crash or a fight; simply a sigh as they breathe their last and disappear. With their towering figures gone, their shadows are gone too and the light illuminates so much that I never saw before; the slippery slope of temptation and the terrifying reality that none are immune.

And while the light has fought forth and revealed what was hidden in the black, the darkness has attacked too, taking those who were once well and casting them naked into the sea of sickness, pain, and death. Or leading them willingly to the well of youth and nudging them to dive in head first, only for them to realize the living water never was there. The dry rock bottom breaks both necks and reputations.

It seems that at the dusking of my day of innocence the black is winning, claiming what used to surround me, by force, by trickery, or by recruitment. As the night and reality settle, fear rises up. Will I be the next statue toppled? Will I dive willingly to my death into a dry well? Will I run towards an oasis in this desert only to realize that the mirage is not matter but a cavity? Simply a deep ravine calling me to jump into the cool blackness, to give in to the world and rest in its simple shadows.

But as my eyes grow dry and the kaleidoscope from tears dissolves into pure sight, a single light is seen in the moon-less sky; a single star reminiscent of one long ago.

A thin dirt path, well traveled but walked poorly, with many footprints on all sides and only one set steady in the middle, grows visible in the single-star light. Dust rises from it as I start to walk, yet I shake it from my sandals at the night around me as I begin to run. Is this where life truly begins? Where Joy and Suffering dance a beautiful waltz down this same path, a dance heavy with sorrow, yet filled with hope, building suspense to a climatic finale, only for them to keep their hands clasped together as they bow at the curtain call. Their fingers are interlocked. A keen eye will notice a wedding band on the left hand of each. I see the weight ahead. I have felt the weight behind. I see the dance ahead and know the end of the dance has come before my beginning, but its echoes beckon me on. I see many mirages and lies that look like life in the light of the night.

I run. East. On the dirt. Towards the sunrise.

The son who rose yesterday has yet to fail me. He shines. And he will shine. He will return in the morning. I will be there.