You enter the sunglasses store after your friend loses his sunglasses while trying out a shirt for the nth time this month. You try on the pair you’ve been wanting to get but dismiss the idea of spending because you don’t really need another one. Then something else catches your attention and you tried them on and it felt and looked right on you. You put it back on the shelf, you don’t need another one. The sales assistant saw you. He approaches admiring how the glasses fit you. Urged you to get it. “You look good in them”, “I know” is your reply. “I’ll get them for you if you don’t”, “then get it for me,” you said. I’m not falling for this sales talk, you thought. You walk around and somehow always end up checking the pair out. You surrender and end up buying them.

What is self-control?

Just a drink. “It will keep me calm, I’m feeling a bit restless,” you said. You drove after two glasses of vodka. You woke up in the hospital, no, in a car, your mom and siblings are next to you. You’re still driving but your legs are fractured. Everyone is asking you what happened. You don’t know. What happened? “Why am I alone? Was I travelling by myself?” you kept on asking them, but they kept on asking you back. You bit your tongue, trying to wake yourself up, you couldn’t believe your eyes, someone is dead. It didn’t work. You were not dreaming. You see your friends, everyone’s concerned, but they don’t appear concerned about you. What’s going on? You pinched yourself, tried to wake yourself up for the second time. No, it’s not a dream. You kept on asking questions and no one gave you answers. It’s dark. You slapped yourself in the face, one last time, this cannot be happening. Trying to figure out if you are dreaming…then, you wake up. And you thought, am I now really awake?

It’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare. I hate it whenever a dream is about dreaming. When your dream feels and looks so real and you try to wake up from it but you couldn’t.