Once upon a time, there was a woman, and she had dreams…
Dreams. Dreams. Dreams.
She loved to soak herself in them like the warmest, most perfect bath, ever drawn.
Dreams. Dreams. Dreams.
Wisps of them–the dreams–wafted off her much like morning dew on a warm summers morning. She loved every second of them. Every single moment of those dreams. They were her happiness.
Then, one day, she realized the world was changing around her. A society that once felt forever stagnate and motionless spun and turn like a possessed top. While she was still tethered to her dreams (dreams. dreams. dreams.) Their tails wrapped around the ball of life, a long, twisted bit of twine created a tangled ring of all her moments in time.
Of all those dreams…
Until she felt stuck.
The dreams that once felt as silky as honeysuckles on a humid night’s breeze transformed. Sweetness went sour. Silk became burlap.
You may think the spinning whipped and turned her around. The tether lassoed to her ankle, wrist, heart–pulled her from her origins, thrusting her into the world. They didn’t. She was a damsel tied to the railroad tracks–a locomotive barreling down on her.
She knew it was wrong. All of it, but she’d become too obsessed, confused, disoriented to begin to understand what was happening. Especially, now… without her:
Dreams.
Dreams.
Dreams.
But one day, a notion dawned upon her. A perfect ‘a-ha’ moment pushed her through the clouds of her mind. What she figured out was none of it is real.
The tether.
The spinning globe.
The disorientation.
They were all illusions conjured by the most wicked evil maker of them all–herself.
…dreams…dreams…dreams…
She’d become so concerned with the outside perception of her she’d neglected her truth. That neglect led to her forgetting who she was and accidentally distanced herself from those dreams.
The moment expanded, growing like a bubble stuck to the tip of a child’s plastic wand. Rainbows and stripes of swirling color encased her. She was the nucleus. She was the yoke floating in the center of it all. And just outside the thin veil separating her from those awful thoughts and her truth–were those dreams.
(dreams. dreams. dreams.)
She knew, while she stared through the stained glass coloring her vision, life was what she decided it to be. She was the creator of her illusion and understood what she stared at the longest became her truth.
Her fingers uncoiled and the tethers released–completely. Her dreams. All of those… Dreams. Dreams. Dreams.
Caught in an upward current, floating high above. Each dream holding every desire she’d ever harbored–bobbing reminders of who, and what, she was.
She was herself. Perfect and true.
She was the right amount of everything because she could never be her or her or even him. And her dreams… all of those dreams! (dreams. dreams. dreams.) kept her afloat and moving forward–high above everything trying to hold her back. High above herself.
The End
What, you may ask, is the moral of the story? Simple. You are never too old to dream. Your dreams are valid. Just because someone else doesn’t understand your dreams will never and can never diminish your dreams. And even if your first had your dream many years ago doesn’t mean it’s not the right dream because dreams don’t have expiration dates–they only fade if we give up on them.
You are perfect just as you are.
Word Junkie 