It is Saturday evening and I can't seem to get hooked into any of the five books I am trying to read. I keep striking on on the sudoku because I have done all the easier ones and the only ones left are the ones that require a skill set greater than mine. I've read over the home inspection and vacuumed the house. And I started thinking. Maybe Saturday evening is for thinking.
I used to be quite the dreamer. At least I was when I was a kid. I was always dreaming of being someone else. Somewhere else. When Olga Korbut broke into our world and flipped and turned and jumped and twisted her way into our living rooms via the 1972 Olympics, I dreamed of doing the same. I suppose every little girl did. When The Sound of Music came to the movie theater I went to see it seven times and dreamed for months of being a little Bavarian girl high in the alps. And when The Waltons played out their rural mountain story every Thursday evening at 8pm I longed and longed and longed to be one of them. And to one day grow up to be just like Olivia Walton with a big farmhouse full of lively children who jumped from haylofts and milked cows and walked to the general store just like in the good ol' days.
As a teenager and even a young adult, I still spent a good deal of time, maybe way too much time, dreaming. Those dreams were mostly of whatever young man was my love interest of the day and when and how he would realize that he couldn't live without me.
I've had other dreams over the years: of living in an interracial urban intentional community, of raising my kids on a farm, of delivering babies or chasing storms, of playing the fiddle, of getting a masters degree, of writing a book, of being good at something. Of making a difference. Dreams live and then they die.
I have never done well with those "Where do you see yourself in 5 (or 10 or 20) years?" I have never had that kind of vision. I have never equated my dreams with where I could see myself. I usually couldn't see myself. I used to think that was some awful omen that I was to die young but I've made it to 54 so far so there's that.
A while back my husband asked me that question. "What do you want to be doing in 10 years?" I just can't see it. I just don't know. I just don't dream any more. And I don't know why.
Perhaps it is because I've seen the foolishness of my dreams. Or the futility. Perhaps it is because life is just so different from how I ever pictured it. It isn't bad, there are indeed very wonderful things about my life, but it is different. Perhaps it is because my dreams are no longer just mine. My life is tied to so many people and therefore what I want doesn't hold the same weight any more. Perhaps it is the feeling of powerlessness that overtakes me when life seems to have spun out of control and I figure why get my hopes up to be disappointed. I really don't know.
Dreams at this age are different any way. What do you dream about at this age? My brain doesn't work. My body has taken on a life of its own without asking my permission. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. And maybe I am just tired.
I guess life has taught me that my dreams pretty much need to stay just that. Dreams. Part contentment. Part resignation.
After all, it isn't about me.. I need to keep an open mind and take what comes. Maybe dreams are overrated. So much else matters more.
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