Run, Boy, Run!

 I have a recurring dream now that has become more and more common these latter days. It’s not exactly the same dream, but it features the same activity.

Running. Me running.

I’m not always a boy, mind you. Last night, for example, I was a grown man, and for some reason I was racing back to school (I didn’t recognize it) where, for some reason, I needed to deliver my bank statement from last month.

Makes lots of sense!?!?

This is even weirder: There were two boys running with me (we were trying to beat one another), and when I woke up, I realized: Each was a version of me at a different age.

When I woke up, I had that Rip Van Winkle feeling: I had been energetic! And young! And able to run!

Hell, I can barely walk now. I often use a walker—or a helping hand a of family member.

And I can’t help thinking about my dad—a high-school track champion, a college athlete. Even when I was in high school (at my peak, I fear) I could not catch Dad in outdoor games of touch football, not unless he let me.

Which was annoying.

And then Dad with a walker. A wheelchair. Eventually unable to propel himself at all. Telling me, near the end of his life, that he liked being asleep because in his dreams he was almost always younger.

I get it now.

But I can run in my dreams—run faster than two earlier versions of me—run faster than I probably ever could—run faster than Time itself.

And that is fast.

And unspeakably sad ...