Why Dream Small?

I was a little bent out of shape that I did not complete my "normal" New Years Eve rituals, writing my errors of the year then tearing them to bits. Writing extensively on my dreams for the next year. Instead, I found myself having a bit of a crying jag in the quiet. I found myself missing some people more than usual--my sister and my daughter, most particularly. And I found myself once again looking at the long-term relationship I will never have with a partner.

It wasn't about lost romance. I had romance in my life and I even have my love story, which I will not link to, since someone named the actual link as "sentimental clap trap-romance!"(I find it interesting that whoever names the links clearly reads the stories, then names them something other than the title. It kinda hurts, but such is modern life. Back to our show.) It was more the idea of not having that continuity in my life that is the one thing I DO envy from longterm marriages. These couples created lives together that spread over decades. With my birth family gone, and the marriage family down to my son, who is not someone who comes out of his own shell a whole lot, and his cousins, with whom I have contact a few times year. For whatever reasons, loss seemed to wash over me this New Year's Eve.

Not liking this particularly, I grabbed onto a "practical" journal I'd kept pretty faithfully all year, and there I found ten pages of dreams. Apparently there was a night when I was slipping, and I simply picked up the book and began writing every dream I have. It would appear that in the coming years I will write a Pulitzer-award-winning novel, I will complete at least five masterpieces of paintings, and I will write ten songs which women all over the place are going to sing. I will continue to exercise six hours a week and be forced to buy all new clothes next Summer.  I will find a way to earn my $900/month+ allowed by Social Security Disability as well. AND I will tutor for free twice a week at a local elementary school. I will double the number of letters I write to various political websites and to the government.

Just so you all understand this, all factors indicate that I will save the world AND be the most creative person on the planet in the coming five years. I hope you are all ready for this. I give you bragging rights to say you knew me when I was just a sporadic blogger. I shan't deny you the thrill.

It made me laugh. A LOT. And, of course, self-pity and depression are terribly hard to maintain when you are laughing at yourself.

Yet it made me happy, as well. I had a rough night. BIG WHOOP. I've had rougher. But this is the 6 to 10-year-old me, most definitely. I was afraid to dream NOTHING. I was going to be the worlds first woman fullback (That's what they called it THEN. I don't know about football today) and play for the New York Giants. I was also going to be the world's first Yankee Southern Writer. Yes, all caps. I told my mom my dreams. My poor mother. It fell to her to encourage me to dream, but to try to help me understand that the likelihood of my being a fullback was nil, and that a Yankee is NOT Southern. In every single decade of my life I've had enormous dreams of fame, fortune, successful achievement. One of my friends has, on occasion, asked me whether this doesn't set me up for failure? "Don't you think it's time you were realistic?"

Why Realism Does not Work for Me

No, I don't. I don't care one way or another about "achievable goals." I believe in the process is the thing--for me. I bought DragonSpeak for myself for Christmas, since sitting up at a computer hurts, and since typing in my lap on ANY device winds up bringing on other problems with hands and wrists! So I hope in the coming weeks to learn how that works on my laptop, and to master the program. Of course, then I must learn to create and talk at the same time.

(Now there are those who would claim that I should have no trouble talking into the computer. They say this while laughing, so I'm thinking they are not complimenting my adaptability there) ... Oh, what the hell. I will choose to take the comments as complimentary, way despite the truth.

You see, my theory is that self-delusion is a wonderful thing when it comes to creative dreams, and when it comes to trying to claim my own health. OTHERS call it self-delusion and unrealistic, and that's fine. I simply call it dreaming big.

And I repeatedly ask what EARTHLY point is there, pleasure is there, in dreaming little, as long as those big dreams keeps me trying to improve? Dreaming big has kept me out of a wheelchair. It has made me start a blog three years ago. It prodded me into learning Garage Band and laying down a four-track original song. It sent me to four out of eight writing classes--made me sign up for it, even though I KNEW I might not be able to complete the course. Dreaming big gave me the courage to post some paintings online and led to a sale in AUSTRALIA--I'm one o' them international ArtEESTS now. (See? Already the "I knew her when" brag can be used!) It made me write to my representative and senators when I felt something mattered--I thought, hey, maybe MY letter will make the difference, since they say that ONE voice can change a mind. Sometimes the only way I get up off the couch is by dreaming big. The novel won't be written if I let the pain keep me on the couch.

DragonSpeak now exists. It was not there for me a decade or two ago, but now it is. It's up to ME to learn to create through speaking the words for that novel, isn't it! And so now I think, perhaps a play or a screenplay, since I will be speaking in order to write at times. And dreaming of ultimate success offers me pleasure and, for the sake of that little girl, drives me to create SOMETHING. And the act of creating something--fabulous, blecch, or so-so--gives me my reason to be when I am housebound, or even, at times, when the choice is mine.

So I did not complete my rituals. I had already apologized to those I felt I'd hurt or been overly critical to. I had already changed that behavior. So why did I need to do more that night? I had my list of ways to improve the person I am from LAST YEAR. The list does not truly change--I'm not likely to reach perfect any time in the next forty to four hundred years. The point is to keep trying, to keep moving, to keep using whatever motivation I need to stand up, to sit up, to pick up the brush, the microphone, the book, the pen--whatever I need.

Dreaming big works for me. So, missy who keeps telling me that I should grow up and be rational, nope. Thank you kindly, but nope. For you, thinking of achievable goals you can check off works very well. I get that; but after fifty years now, can't you see that that doesn't work for me?  I have a Pulitzer-winning novel to write and masterpieces to paint--oh, did I mention the Picture-book?--and songs to write.  I have muscles to build and a heart and set of lungs to keep strong. (Yeah, okay, and two loads of laundry, but please. Who wants to dream of doing laundry more easily? And the dream of being an Amazon Queen appeals to me more than I shall lose sixty pounds and be in a size 6.)

Thank GOD I am only 60 years old, so there's time. So here's to you big dreamers out there who celebrate process more than product. If we're working toward anything, then we are succeeding in my book.

Happy New Year!