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PHANTOM OF FOLLY

For the past few weeks I have been learning more about a struggle that a friend of mine is currently enduring. As I've listen to her heart when she speaks of the events that have brought her to the place she is in emotionally, her words aroused a dormant memory I have been carrying around inside of me for several years. It is a memory that I tucked away deep down inside of me but now find it confronting me again today.

Yes, I remember.

First there were the sleepless nights where the brain would not shut down. I would toss and turn with anxiety as my mind tried to make sense out of those things that were senseless. Where rivers of tears wanted to flow from my heart to my pillow, I could not allow it....he told me I had nothing to cry about. Crying is for the weak. Crying could cause him to injure me again. Quickly I learned to automatically dismiss any desires to allow the tears to fall with their healing power. I found it to be less painful than what consequences would follow had I allowed them. Finally the day arrived where I was able to once and for all escape from my tragic situation. What a relief it was, mixed with fear; a freedom had arrived, but some chains remained; I
longed to let the tears cascade from my eyes, but had forgotten how. Sleep had returned, and the nightmares accompanied it. This nighttime intruder I named

The Phantom of Folly
The day announced its end as the sun descended into the mysteries that lay beneath the horizon. As darkness moves in spreading his cold blanket over her world, the nighttime brings with it a beast, an eerie stalker, a creature of gloom. No longer does the light of the moon illuminate the skies in her life or light a path at her feet leading a journey to the horizon, an unlimited space whose voice was freedom. But the beast of the night invades her slumber. The phantom of folly paints night pictures using her defenseless mind for his canvas. Harsh strokes of his brush fabricate ghosts of her past. Fallacious artistry authored by the skilled phantom inflict deeper anguish into her heart and soul as the raging war plays out in the reality designed by the nighttime intruder. Tears trail down her fallen countenance. Wrestling with the beast of the night she cries out in the dark to reclaim her freedom; a freedom to heal; a freedom to rest; a cry to flee from the imposing invasion of the distress and harm of the nighttime vision. Aroused from restless slumber she finally escapes, her pillow dampened by the sorrow that streamed from her eyes as the phantom of folly performed in the night.

So it was, I had learned to cry again even though it was during my sleep.

And the healing began.

Lynn

Copyright 2000