I am not always sure what I dream while I’m awake.
On the one hand, I would definitely identify myself as a dreamer. Vishnu knows that my feet are never on the ground — gad, I hardly even have any metaphorical feet at all! It’s all in my head: it’s either in the clouds, or burrowing headlong like a power-drill bit hoping to burn out past six feet under. I never operate on foot. I used to think that qualified me as a dreamer (probably largely because I was always told as much). But I think maybe I’ve learned something about every-day dreamers — they’re actually pretty grounded.
I think this dreamer self-identification is perhaps I just yearn to be recognized as the fulfilled, complete person who possesses the strength and the grace to epitomize the romantic ideal of pursuing and reaching my (worthy and one-of-a-kind) desires. I want to be the person that I admire, but I want other people to admire me. This is a problem (for me, at least; I think other people can handle it and even have it both ways). It causes conflict in the dreaming scheme of things. In the end, I am the kind of person who’ll operate on my own, forget what the world wants, and just go my own way. But in the beginning, I vacillate.
Maybe this dreamer identity ache is just that I want to be able to quote “Imagine” resolutely, without any wistfulness, and be “in” with the dreamers. But whatever I am, sometimes I feel like I AM the only one.
I grew up in an environment that resulted in self-squashing all hopes and dreams. I think what my parents wanted to promote was being happy with the mundane grind of life, but what they ended up grinding in instead was that greatness is predetermined by a mostly unalterable combination of genetics and life situation, and most people just don’t have what it takes to be extraordinary. Dreams are therefore useless. I was force-fed this, and it’s stuck with me.
My husband grew up in an opposite environment. His mother, especially, thinks that anyone she meets is extraordinary. His parents taught their children they can be anything they want, and they all believe it. It kind of annoys me sometimes (I’m such a horrible Grinch). To paint a broad-brush caricature, they’re all walking around, delusional, thinking that they can be astronauts. But when I’m not being small-hearted about it, I’m achingly wistful for that kind of weightless optimism: a deep rooted hope and belief that if you really try, you can make it.
Threadless shirts teach me life lessons and make me cry, and this one symbolizes what I think my husband is (yes, my best friend’s a flying ostrich!) and what I’ve started to think I can be.
This year I took two little international trips; one to London, and one to Japan. I realized after we climbed out of the train into Paddington station that this was something I had always dreamed about when I was younger, but I never seriously thought it could happen. I made plenty of dreams, but I did it without the expectation that they’d ever come true. I wondered, then, how many dreams I’d had that I have forgotten because I was sure they’d just never happen to me.
I realized, I make dreams expecting to watch them die.
It is hard for me to breathe life into my dreams. My overall dream is to be happy with what I am. I’m a searcher, not a settler. I feel like I should settle. I want to pick one thing and make it mine. I want to pick one job. One place. One favorite outfit. One day of the week where I always clean the bathroom. But I just don’t work that way. And because I don’t work that way, I think I don’t work. But you know, maybe I do. Anyway, I dream about not fighting myself.
I’ve already fulfilled many of my dreams. I don’t give myself credit for many of those, but in the past several years, I’ve fulfilled dozens of big and little dreams. I’ve learned a language. I’ve excelled at advanced mathematics. I’ve created an inimitable relationship with the person I love. (The myriad ways I’ve fulfilled and re-filled this dream, especially, are astoundingly profound for me.) I’ve moved out of Utah, and not just out, but to the place I always dreamed of living when I was younger. I’ve run one mile without stopping.
Some of my not-dead-yet dreams, all long-term and far out of reach for me: I want to get a job I usually enjoy (I actually have a job like that right now! So far so good). To visit France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Australia, South Africa. To figure out some way to live in Japan for a little while. To arrange a few songs for my instrument and sell the sheet music, or at least have it performed somewhere. To go to grad school. To run a 5k. To be able to perform crane pose in yoga, and as long as I’m reaching, crocodile pose too.
To hold on to these dreams tomorrow.