The dream of the future, the longing for more, the promise of better is what dragged us through this summer. 

The endless stream of challenges and difficulties we’ve faced have tested us in every respect. Our emotional, personal, and social lives have been ripped apart and clumsily patched back together. Our dreams face the darkest of nights, the most threatening of wolves and the strongest of hate and we must trudge on. 

We tremble through the fog. Our feet are being pulled down by the sticky, sloppy swamp water, the cold infecting our bones and diseasing our minds. The branches around us shear our skin open, scraping out our veins and poking a thousand needles into our nerves. The glutinous mud oozes between our fingers, gluey and gummy as it hardens under our fingernails, on our paper-thin eyelids, and cakes on our skin. 

This storm is hidden, silent but deadly, and even so, scares us into submission no matter the consequences. Our world deconstructs and we stand by, living in glass houses we’re told will weather the storm. We reach out for companionship, our voices echoing in the canyon between us and a friend, a colleague, an acquaintance, anyone.

Anyone.

Anyone.

Is anyone still there? 

We are dirty. We are run down. We are tired and scared and stuck. This swamp has overcome everything. 

Our home, the countryside we once knew is gone. It may have been repetitive or tedious or arid, but it was safe. We had freedoms we took for granted, and days of exploration we became sick of. But then we could explore freely.  Now, we resort to bad habits and truly dull lifestyles. 

Which is why, even when we’re knee-deep in the bog, as soon as the road seems to dry out a little or get shallower, we run faster, no matter how exhausted we may be, hoping the countryside is near, hoping the marshlands are drying out. Hoping, dreaming, praying, that the sun might poke through and the storm will have worn itself out.

It will someday wear itself out.

Right?