still dreaming

Next year it will be different. Next year will be different but I’m sure more of the same. We do it every year write down our wishes and desires and ways we want to be different- how things should be different. But how does change happen? How does a dream or goal become actualized? There is no linear path to happiness, that I am sure. But what I am sure of is the importance of dreams.

You can learn a lot by asking someone what they wanted to be when they grew up. It is funny because each thing a person might list is so telling. Every person says something like a teacher, or a marine biologist, or a doctor or, or, or. Always something interesting. Always something never boring. Always something that matters in our world. I used to want to be a lawyer or the first woman president-which is probably still telling of who I am today. I shoot high, really high even when I was still in the confines of my only domain of my childhood bedroom. The first woman president. It still hasn’t happened yet. I could still be her. But now I don’t want it like I once did. Because as a child, I didn’t understand how ugly politics could be and the price you will have to pay to be successful. So today, today I am a part time nanny, a literacy volunteer, and I blog. It wasn’t what I had planned. I thought I would be something prestigious, something important. But maybe this work is more important than the lawyering and politicking I can do.

I ask people both young and old regularly what do you want to/or did you want to be when you growing up. I think it says a lot about who we are. What are dreams are. The dreams of our childhood were much simpler, more real, less influenced by the outside world. I dream of the freedom of childhood. The freedom to dream my dreams without the judgment of others or myself blurring the lines of importance. Dreaming, I still do it. That might be why I also believe in others, I dream in the possibilities of what we can all do. Even if it means I will be disappointed. Disappointed because my dreams look different now. Letting go and holding onto the childhood dreams for simplicity and happiness and real true success. So next year it will be different and it is. I have a new life of freedom, freedom from the office, freedom from the 9-5, freedom from the sounds of judgment in my own head, freedom from the anxiety, freedom to roam and write and laugh for that I keep dreaming.