I see a Mecca up ahead.  The sun is almost set.  The sky is mostly dark blue with some purple hues towards the horizon.  An orange light lines the point where earth meets sky in the farthest direction I can see.  There are lights glowing up ahead and down below.  I realize I’m up on a vista…coming upon an overlook.  I’m worn from the journey.  Dirt covers my skin…my face…my hands…my arms…legs and feet.  My hair no longer resembles me…but an a wild version of a ghost of me.  I yearn to go home.  And I see it up ahead.  Have I made it?  God please….have I made it?  My feet ache and I’m empty down to my soul.  I want to go home…where I remember crystal clear fantasies of perfect relationships, undying loyalties, a plus b equals c logic, the dreams that keep on giving, and the unfolding of a life that I believed I was so deserving of.  I wanted to go back home from wherever I came.  I remember a time when the world was my oyster and I was unstoppable.  I could conquer anything.  I knew it all and if I didn’t, I had what I needed to figure it out.  I remember the day I stepped off the ledge into an ocean of sharks.  I thought I was swimming with mermaids….the dream of all dreams….only to find I was being hunted and fed off of.  A shark in mermaid’s clothing…and there were many.  I was wined and dined and pictures were painted ….like backdrops of movies made of cardboard….a land of make believe…and I thought I was the star.  My world came crashing down around me.  The mermaid costumes fell one by one…and I realized I was surrounded by sharks….all trying to get a piece of me….whether it was to get a piece of me to discard for the sheer pleasure of throwing me away….or whether it was to toy with me…to make me feel safe then scared…..where eventually I begged for mercy for the bullying to stop.  Realizing I was alone in the vast ocean of life…..the dark waters surrounding me….terror consumed me for what I knew was harbored deep below and all round me.  I wanted to go home.  Back to my naivete. Home to that place where I believed in fairy tales…..where mermaids were mermaids and sharks were sharks and I knew the difference.   Where the difference was so clear that I could not go wrong.