When the Ground Keeps Dissolving
Some mornings the only truth is the trembling in your own body.
This past week, my dreams have been wild and cinematic — the kind that feel more like messages than memories. Last night, I dreamed my sandals were crumbling on my feet. First into dirt. Then into maggots. Then into mounds of living, crawling earth. People were scooping from the rotten heaps as if it were food, and I kept searching for a new pair of sandals, only for them to fall apart again.
I woke with the same uneasy feeling I’ve been carrying for months:
Everything I’m standing on keeps dissolving.
Every structure. Every plan. Every sense of identity.
Even in sleep, my mind seems to say:
You don’t know where to put your feet anymore.
The body keeps the score, even when I’m just trying to get through the morning
For the past few mornings, I’ve been doing a Flow60 workout — stretching, tapping, breathing, moving parts of my body I’ve ignored for too long. The worst part is the burpees and pushups, but I push through them because I’m trying to build some kind of rhythm.
The workout ends with a meditation.
I can’t last twenty minutes, so I sit for ten.
And every time, my pelvis and hips and thighs tremble — like old shocks releasing themselves.
I don’t know what it is. Trauma unwinding. Adrenaline shaking loose. Stored fear thawing.
All I know is: afterward I feel a little calmer.
But then the calm fades and the questions return, the same ones that hover over me every day:
What do I do next?
What do I do with my life?
How am I supposed to survive this?
Dreams that feel like warnings, or maps, or fragments of something deeper
It’s strange how vivid my dreams have become.
Some feel grotesque, others strangely beautiful.
Sandals turning into rot.
A room with a glass wall where sick or “unacceptable” people worked behind it.
Psychedelic colors under my feet.
An old childhood friend drifting in and out of reach.
It feels like my mind is trying to show me something I don’t yet have words for:
that everything in my life is shifting,
that nothing old will hold anymore,
that I’m walking barefoot into something unknown.
Trying to work when you feel like this
I think about work every day.
Purpose.
Money.
Structure.
Survival.
The truth is:
my back can’t handle the construction work I used to do.
My body is different now, and every flare-up terrifies me — not just the pain, but the fear of sliding backward mentally, emotionally, physically.
So Uber has become this strange middle ground.
Not glamorous.
Not stable.
But it’s something.
A way to bring in money without breaking my body again.
A way to have hours, a task, a purpose — even if small.
A bridge between where I am and whatever might come next.
And honestly, right now, “something” feels like grace.
The truth beneath all of this
What I do know is that waking up lately feels like resurfacing from a long underwater swim — lungs burning, disoriented, unsure where the shore even is.
But I’m here.
I’m breathing.
I’m trying.
I’m writing because writing feels like putting one hand on the wall in a dark room.
A way to stay oriented.
A way to stay alive.
If you’re in this place too
If your dreams are chaotic,
or your body is trembling,
or your depression is loud and confusing and relentless…
I see you.
You’re not “behind.”
You’re not failing.
You’re not broken.
You’re a human being trying to survive something unimaginably heavy.
And sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is just keep breathing, keep moving, keep taking the next small right step — even when the ground keeps dissolving beneath you.
If this piece named something you’ve been carrying — even for a moment — I’m glad you’re here.
If this resonated and you’d like to help me keep creating work like this, you can support my writing here:
Keep writing! It’s one way to stay present. And it’s a great talent you can share with the world.