There is a shack. It stands in the middle of an endless white expanse, weathered and forgotten. The walls are thin, the roof sags, and the windows let in drafts that cut through like whispers of old wounds. Snow piles high against the foundation, and rain seeps through the cracks, soaking into the floorboards. Inside, I sit, shivering, trying to make a home of it.
This is not a nightmare—it doesn’t have the sharp terror of one—but it lingers, haunting me in the quiet moments of my waking life. The shack appears again and again in my dreams, always the same. It is a place meant to hold me, a place given to me by unseen hands, and yet it fails. Its structure is more suggestion than reality, a gesture of shelter but not the thing itself.
I wake from these dreams carrying their weight, the cold still in my bones. I wonder what it means. Why the shack? Why this constant image of being placed in a space so fragile, so inadequate, and told, “This is yours. Be grateful.”
I think I know.
The shack feels like my life, a metaphor for the places I have been given to dwell. It is the relationships that offered scraps and called them gifts. The kind of care that gives just enough to keep me there but not enough to make me thrive. It’s the silence that met my pain, the indifference that followed my cries for help. It is a story told to me again and again: This is what you deserve. Make do.
And I did. I swept the dirt floors, patched the holes in the walls, and tried to warm the space with whatever light I could find. I turned this drafty, broken shack into something livable. But the storms always found a way in, the snow piling high, the rain soaking through.
The weather in my dreams is relentless. It presses against the walls, slipping through every gap and crack. The cold isn’t just the chill of winter—it’s the weight of life itself. The unkind words, the betrayals, the responsibilities that pile on endlessly. The way loneliness wraps itself around you, no matter how hard you try to fight it off.
And yet, I survive. Even in the dream, I survive. I sit by a small, stubborn flame, refusing to let the darkness consume me.
Sometimes, in these dreams, there is a party. A place I am supposed to go, people waiting for me. But I am never ready. The shack feels too far from the celebration, too fragile to leave behind. I stand in the doorway, uncertain, as though the storm outside is less frightening than the thought of stepping out into the unknown.
I think this part of the dream is about connection. It reminds me of all the times I’ve held back, too weary to show up fully in relationships or moments that mattered. Not because I didn’t want to, but because the storms in my life had drained me, left me with too little to give.
The shack isn’t just a place. It’s a story about what I’ve accepted, what I’ve endured. It’s a testament to how often I’ve made do with so little, how I’ve convinced myself to be grateful for the bare minimum. But it’s also a reminder of my resilience, my ability to create light even in the coldest, darkest spaces.
Still, I can’t live in survival mode forever. The shack isn’t where I belong—it’s where I’ve been. It’s a reflection of the relationships, the spaces, the dynamics I’ve been handed and told to inhabit. But I am beginning to see that I don’t have to stay.
I don’t need to wait for someone to build me something better. I can gather the tools, lay the foundation, and create a home for myself. Not a palace, not even a cabin—just a place that feels warm and steady, where the storms can rage outside but won’t seep in. A sanctuary built from my own strength, my own love, my own worth.
The shack has taught me so much. It has shown me what I no longer want and what I deeply deserve. It has reminded me that I am capable of enduring, but also that I shouldn’t have to endure so much.
When I imagine the future, I see something different. A place of warmth and light. A space that reflects who I am and what I’ve built for myself. I wonder if, when that vision becomes real, the shack will finally disappear from my dreams. Or maybe it will remain, a quiet reminder of how far I’ve come.
Either way, I will keep building. One small brick at a time.