Dreams

My friend Maria * was vibrant. Full of life. Passionate about her husband, children, friends, and career. She loved on my kids as if they were her own. She made the best salsa. And she passed away after a short illness just 6 months shy of her 40^th birthday.

As we collectively reeled in the aftermath, her mom made a curious comment to me. She told me that Maria had always hoped to go back to school to become an immigration lawyer. 

This comment made me unusually angry. Maria was so clever and driven and compassionate. Being an immigration lawyer would have been a perfect fit for her. Why didn’t she go for it? 

And why did her decision make ME so angry? It certainly didn’t impact me at all. 

So I went about my life, trying to put this unhelpful anger behind me. Except it didn’t go anywhere. It lingered. It festered. It popped up at inconvenient times. I finally decided to stop and listen to what the anger was trying to tell me.

After noodling on the idea for a while, it dawned on me. My anger wasn’t about her; it was about me.

In the midst of mothering and caring and wife-ing and house-making and career-pursuing, I had forgotten about me. I was so busy DOING that I forgot to think about DREAMING.

To put it in terms my teenaged sons would understand, this isn’t a video game. We don’t get to re-spawn to try again to get a different outcome. We get one shot. One shot to live fully. To love deeply. To become the people we were meant to be.

What if I get to the end of my life and there are big dreams left unrealized? Did I even have big dreams? As a wife and mom and paycheck-earner, am I allowed to dream big dreams, let alone pursue them? 

It turns out I do have big dreams. I am allowed to dream them. And I am allowed to pursue them.

Except I hadn’t allowed myself to dream my dreams for so long that I forgot how. Have you ever felt a tickle and couldn’t figure out what was causing it? Is it a long hair? An ant? My overactive imagination? That’s what my dreams felt like. I knew they were there, but I couldn’t get clarity or insight to articulate what exactly was tickling right under the surface.

I needed some margin to give myself time and emotional space to dream my dreams. I started by Marie Kondo-ing my life. Does this activity bring me joy? No? Then you’re outta here! I pared down and outsourced as much as I could. Can my kids do the dishes? Well, not well, but it’s fine. I un-volunteered from projects and activities that took up precious hours in the day.

So far so good. Now instead of squandering my newly found free time conquering Candy Crush, I needed to find my dream. Which was about as productive as trying really really hard to fall asleep – the more you think about it and obsess over it, the less likely it is to happen. I read books, watched inspirational TED Talks, listened to umpteen podcasts – nothing stood out. In fact, I started to feel the pressure of too many of other people’s dreams now starting to swirl in my brain!

So I stopped. I stopped trying so hard. I explored mindfulness and yoga. I allowed my imagination to wander to new and interesting places while I was gardening or walking the dog. I asked myself what is it that I always wanted to know, or see, or do. I colored and did cross-stitch projects to wake up the creative, intuitive parts of my brain. 

Slowly I started to reinvent myself. As my dreams emerged timidly like a cat peeking out from under a bed during a chaotic house party, I learned to approach my dreams slowly and respectfully to earn their trust to eventually show me more of themselves. 

My exact dreams aren’t the point. The point is I learned HOW to dream. How to take time for myself. How to give myself permission to fail. How to be ok learning and doing something I might be terrible at, at least at first. 

What are your dreams? Do you spend time dreaming them? Do you tentatively or wholeheartedly embrace them?

We only get one chance at life. Let’s live it to its fullest.

* If you know this story in real life, you’ll recognize I changed the name and adjusted a few details. This post was originally delivered as a Toastmasters contest speech **, and I didn’t feel it was appropriate to tell someone else’s story to a bunch of strangers.

** Yes, I won the contest. 🙂