Saying Goodbye to My Dreams

I have started saying goodbye to my dreams. I think that I might have subconsciously started this process some time ago, but it has officially started, front and center of my consciouness, tonight. Through the process of realizing that I am not who I had made myself up to be, and that my life is not what I thought it was, it has occurred to me that the dreams that I have had were perhaps not the dreams that I wanted to have. And that, my friends, is much more like a nightmare. Sitting in my comfy, although really quite dirty, chair-and-a-half, night after night..alone...has given me ample time to think. Although my instinct is always to block out the bad things, ignore them until they go away, the matter of my divorce and the circumstances that surround it, is not one that will be ignored. So, the nightmares come and the dreams fade away...

One dream that I am letting go of tonight is the dream of wealth equalling happiness. I know...I know that is trite, and you are likely thinking, "duh, woman. Of course wealth doesn't equal happiness". But let's be realistic. With money comes the comfort of knowing you can take that trip to Paris, or you can afford to send your children to that private school, fill your call up with gas, or even just pay the power bill. When the dreams all revolve around that day, that day when money is a non-issue, you are just setting the stage for the nightmare. I have learned that it doesn't really matter your socio-economic status. Money impacts every relationship in a negative way at some point. Even the most wealthy among us have turbulent times when it comes to financial stability. It is the rare Bill Gates kind of money that can stay about the financial fray that the rest of us are constantly trying to prevent further unravelling of...And so, I am letting go of this dream tonight. The dream that having a sufficient amount of funds in my account will help me maintain a healthy and happy relationship. I get that it's a silly dream and one that's based on no merit whatsoever. I get that.

I may chronicle future jettisoning of vapid dreams in subsequent blogs...it makes for nice filler when I am struggling for a topic. But for now, I will think of the dreams I have yet to create. The ones that might impart some bit of comfort in an otherwise nightmarish time. I do have this one dream...One I am scared to share, for fear that it is only that...A dream. Never to come to fruition, only to replay itself in my mind to remind me of the things that I have cast asunder. However, this blog has become my open forum for such fears, and often by putting them into cyber-space, I can move past them as fears and learn to embrace them as reality. So here we go...

In this dream, I am whole. I am strong, happy, healthy, and successful. Not successful in a wealth accumulating way, but just an overall sense of success in living. I have a life that gives me purpose. My children are growing up to be strong, happy, healthy young women. In this dream, I live by the sea and I illustrate children's books. My life is simple, but with purpose. When I wake up in the morning, the sun shines into my bedroom. But the warmth I feel is not from the sun. It is from the person next to me that I have chosen to spend my days with. And there he sleeps, mouth open, softly snoring, until he realizes that I am gazing at him. He wakes. He tells me that I am the most beautiful woman he has even known, and that he is the happiest, luckiest man in the world. And I believe him. Although he has given me reasons to doubt him in the past, he always makes up for those transgressions, and then some. And so I believe.

We should all have dreams that fill us with warmth. We should all have dreams that fill us with hope. We should all have dreams that make us believe. For when we stop believing, the dreams have nowhere to go...And you have to say goodbye to your dreams. And really, my friends, that's just sad.