My life dreams are like big fat boys in middle school who bully and bluff with the one thing they have on everyone else – their size. Like a skinny thirteen-year old girl, I pretend they don’t exist anymore than the pimple on the end of my nose does. But they do. Large, irritated and potentially bursting at any moment. Perspective offers my only hope. For example, high school reunions reveal these same bullies became bald mechanics assistants who survive entirely on beer and beef. And the skinny girl with the zit immerges curvy and clear faced with only just a little help from puberty and retinol. The dreams might not go away – but perspective reveals the truth of their power, or sometimes lack of….
I want to be BFFs with my dreams. I want to giggle at the thought of them and doodle their names in curly letters with bubbles on them. I want to share secrets and know that when I buy a tunic thinking it is a dress that they will be the first to offer me support and their leggings. What went wrong with my dreams and me? How did we get to a non-functioning relationship? Where can you go for dream counseling? How can once again the partnership be rekindled so that someday my dreams and I can work together instead of apart?
It occurred to me while using a lavatory in a plane that if this is possible – then surely befriending my dreams is too. Just like using a plane’s potty, it might be awkward…but it’s always worth it.
If I were thirteen and wanted a bully to be my friend – what would I do? How would I bridge a gap that seems wider than the Grand Canyon? I might smile, might text, maybe even invite them to become my facebook friend. There has to be something that starts us both moving closer to each other… One thing I know about dreams is they don’t respond to feigned kindness. They know when we genuinely see value and worth in them.
Ok. My first step is to put down my critical opinions of how they invaded my life, unwanted and unasked, and to open myself up to see potential in them. This is hard. To have a friend – we have to first be a friend. I first have to see potential in me. It would be easier to watch network television without seeing at least one commercial using a half naked woman to advertise their product. But I am determined.
What did my dreams see in me? Why didn’t they pick another somebody, anybody?
In American Idol style, I want to solicit votes to see if I really should be the one chosen for their destiny – or them for mine. However, I know the Olympian way is a better indicator of how I measure up to my dreams. I have to do the work, the long, tedious, hours of disciplining myself to own my dreams and to let them become apart of me. I have to put myself out there – on 8 ft. long skis, in freezing temperatures if I want to fly high and achieve the highest goal for a girl and her dreams. Oh wait – girls can’t ski jump in the Olympics. Ice-skating it is. If I want to skate in complete synchronicity with my dreams – we have Salchow simultaneously.
As I look out the plane’s window and see the city’s skyscrapers stretch unimpressively toward me, I relax. It truly is all about perspective. In my cramped upright position – or maybe I in my reclined position – I never can tell on a plane – I pledge resolutely to befriend my big fat bully dreams. I am not sure but I think they smiled at me.
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