Sleeping to dream of a tomorrow that would never come.

Silently, peacefully sleeping. Tremors were normal. In any case, home was the safest place to be.

Home: memories, objects, friends and family. It's understandable. We're a race of material, earthly, people-bound beings.

Tomorrow would bring a happy earth, and the continuation of political campaigns, dinners, smiles, fights--it would be business as usual. The chariots and carts would continue to carve their way through stone, foreigners would come visit the city, life would go on because bad things only happen to past and future generations.

These seemingly advanced people didn't worry about the eruption that was coming, because in their present reality, it wasn't an eruption. Just another little tremor. If they just waited it out a little longer, it would go away. The monster in the mountain would eventually be happy with them again, and the earth would only move with the people who tread on it.

But that normal tomorrow never came. In its place came ash, and fumes, and fire: unforgiving, conquering. The tomorrow they waited on, was instead a fury that annihilated them. Because they waited just a little too long, because they couldn't leave the business or their homes, because money was good, because their great grandparents had built that house and it had to stay in the family. For a million reasons that make little sense, outsider looking in.

At first, it seemed silly to me that this is how Pompeians lived. The same people who could have running water going to fountains all over the city, believed that a monster lived in their mountain and made the earth quake when he was unhappy. It didn't add up. And then, then it clicked like a seat-belt.

History repeats itself again.

You see, the disaster and destruction of Pompeii isn't something new. The great flood, Sodom and Gomorrah...New Orleans and Katrina. The list could go on...and will.
In large cities, in unknown towns. To the famous...and to us.

I lived it.
Why?
Because the heart is a deceptive thing. And my reality wasn't real. My reality told me that I was where I needed to be, that I needed to stay, to wait it out a little longer. At least until the worst was over...just to see if it really would get better. Because at some point a long time ago, I remembered being happy.

We stay because we trick ourselves into believing that this is it. This place holds my memories, these people make me who I am, these things make me happy.
But we're wrong. We're standing by, living our lives thinking the eruption won't affect us, it'll come later. When we're ready.

Wrong.

A place may make memories stronger, but the memories are in your mind, not in the place.
And these people, yes, they are important, but there have been times when you've had to balance yourself without someone to hold on to.
These things...they bring temporary satisfaction, like a new toy does to a child. Eventually though, there's something bigger and better to get.

And I'm not saying we shouldn't love our homes, our people, or our things. But we can't get to the point where that is everything. Because it's not. It can't be.

My tomorrow shouldn't be another today.
My people cannot make me become them, because then we never grow.
This place can't feel like home, not if it's pulling me back instead of pushing me forward, upward.
And these nice things, they can't be what I'm working for.

Not to the point where I lose focus, where my reality is distorted.

There is an eruption coming, and I don't want to be stuck in the ash because I was too rooted, too attached to things, to this place. Especially when I know that I have a promised home where none of these things will be of importance.
I want that to be my tomorrow.
That's what I want to dream about: getting towards my heavenly reality.