Finding Strength of Will

I sit here in a moment of quiet reflection.  The  house is still.  I am still.  It has been some time since I felt still.  And silent.  But my mind is a whirl of thoughts and faces and dreams.  I hold my breath, almost, afraid that something will break this moment--the children waking up, or a phone call.  The sound of my keystrokes is almost too loud.  This moment is precious to me as I look inwards and outwards.  Inwards at who I have become and what has changed; outwards at where I am and what hasn’t changed. I feel the need to recount the dream that I woke with; it is still lingering in my memory, which is unusual.  Most fade more quickly than the frost in the morning sunlight.  Many details have faded, but one incident sticks out clearly in my mind.  My dreaming mind visited a prison.  Dirty, somber and grim.  I was standing in a hallway leading into a room, small but high-walled.  I could not see the c...