When I was a kid, I can recall having many dreams. I suppose they were probably your garden variety type of dreams that a typical American boy might have. Hitting the game winning home run with the bases loaded and two outs when your team is down by three in the bottom of the ninth in Game Seven of the World Series and you’ve got two strikes on you. Making a diving stab in the end zone with defenders draped all over you as time runs out in the Super Bowl. Sinking a buzzer beating three pointer in the NBA Finals. In all of these instances, the crowd cheered and I became some kind of heroic figure and was adored by the masses for many years to come. I certainly never dreamt about being where I am today, at least career wise.
These days, I can barely recall anything I dream of. I think I’ve gotten to the age when my dreams have faded so far that they play little significance in my day-to-day life. My sleep, so fitful and full when I was a youth, is now broken up in shards and fragments that consists of trips to the bathroom and hours of what seems like endless worries. I guess I’m faced with the stark reality that none of those things that I dreamt of as a youth are ever going to come true.
So, were those dreams I had a youth merely lies I was telling myself and if they were, where did they go? I keep looking under the other side of the pillow in search of them but they’re not to be found. They seem to have vanished like a thief in the night and have taken a small piece of me away with them. Maybe they weren’t dreams at all but instead were mere fantasies that one indulges themselves in when the world is your oyster and within it lies a pearl.
These days, I don’t have time for dreams and for that, I only have myself to blame. The clock always seems to be ticking. The drumbeat of time can be deafening, the march towards the mundane relentless.
But, then again, I do take a certain solace when my little one asks me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I tell her of my dreams and get a faraway look in my eyes and smile and recall actual events that I’m proud of myself over. They’re too few and far between, yet, they exist and I can remember. She smiles and asks me more questions that lead to more stories and tales. She reveals some dreams of her own and I can’t help but smile back at her. The look of hope on her face goes a long way to mend whatever was or is broken inside of me. My dreams are, in effect mended.
I hope her dreams aren’t lies. I hope they jump out from under her pillow and take on a life of their own. I hope each and every one of them could come true.
Although I don’t dream for myself that much anymore, I do dream for her and a selfish part of me wishes I would’ve had the conversation I’ve just related in one of my dreams when I was a child. Maybe then, one of my dreams might have come true.
Maybe it did and maybe I just don’t know it.