If I was told that I had a brief time left on this planet what would I want to make sure I told the next generation to come behind me? We listen to stories and fables that are passed down from generation to generation. The statements that are quoted at weddings, in speeches, in research papers, and in the front covers of books that reflect an encompassing comment resonating deep within our human spirit.
I have always been an idealist, believing in the goodness of life. I am swept away at times with the wonder of this world, and a majority of my “formative” years were spent daydreaming about the type of adult I would be. I wanted to change the world. I had dreams I chased down every corridor of possibility and once exhausted another appeared.
A part of me has always believed there was something deeper within me. My freshman year of college I tired to explain to a friend my feelings of a lion living deep within my chest wanting only to be out. For a season I let myself get philosophical, allowing the naiveté of believing I had even the barest thread of a clue to what life was all about. Always believing that fire in my belly, the lion that longed to break free was just teenage angst. I do believe a large part of the feeling was spurred on by unsettled hormones and growing pains. However, that feeling, no matter how much I tried to calm it, is still alive and well inside. I think I’ve just learned to balance the burden of it and know that things are a process.
This process is what I would want to leave behind. A detailed map to leave that doesn’t necessarily provide direction, but more as a cheerleader to encourage during the processes of the process.
What I would want others to know is they aren’t in this alone. The thing about the process is, at times it can seemingly isolate you. The aloneness taunts you with long strokes of pity, offering you a modicum of pride with a lie. The lie? You deserve to feel this way as you are the only one.It is the greatest enemy to our dream and in the process we hit a really hard wall. It’s like life kicks you in the face and then, you keep it to yourself bathing in the misery of it. Before you know it you’re at a pity party for one and everyone else has gone home.
The problem with the isolation during the process is it’s doesn’t begin to complete the cycle until you let someone know what’s going on. At some point most people hit a point and start looking for something else. They determine that life is short and there should be something more to it. There is something that woos us in a grandiose style and creates a craving to see what could be. We stop wondering and start finding out.
And though these processes are meandering and at times repetitive they are building character and displaying grace.
Things change. Time makes dreams from childhood look different when you are actually living them. When I was a senior in high school I bought a gimmicky scrapbook that you fill in with memories and memorabilia to keep beyond high school. I actually did it and I worked on it all year, still have it 13 years later. There is a page in it that asked for an answer to the quintessential, Where do you see yourself in 10 years? question. So I diligently filled it in.
Education: a master’s in psychology and religion working on my PhD.
Career: pastoral counseling
Family: husband no kids soon but not yet
Home: Whatever God grants me to afford
Car: a better one NO Chevettes!!!
Other Important Goals: close with my family still. My brother close to me.
Mom still my help. (Gracious some of this makes me cringe to put it in here) to still be following God, to have been to Amsterdam to see Anne Frank’s house. Not to be ordinary.
Ten years later…
I was about to graduate from college with my undergrad, I was living with my parents, and working at my mother’s bead store. Not much like the picture I had all those years ago.
It is this contrast that brings me to what I would want to leave to the generations. More importantly, if and when I have a daughter this is what I would want to tell her:
I am a daydreamer. The more I tell women about my daydreaming habits they start to share theirs, old stories that lie deep with in them that were all but forgot. They creep out and remind them of the girl they once where. I know that my daughter is going to be a dreamer. I am like my grandmother, and I know that she will dream about life and plan at being older and in one breath I want to tell her not to daydream her life away, because the time when life leaves you carefree and without responsibility is very short. I don’t know why we always dream about when we are older, because honestly, the older I get the more I realize how much fun I had, and how fast life is going now.
But this is great too – the figuring it out part. Where you find yourself at a place where it’s time to start making the choices on your own. When you are facing monumental life changing directional choices that only you can make and no matter how much you want someone else to tell you what to do, it’s all up to you this time. It is there where you realize that it’s hard and each one has a consequence that could change tomorrow no matter what.
In high school I thought I knew what the dream looked like and you know, I honestly thought that was what I really wanted. And in part it really was. I still do not want to be ordinary. I still do not want to live an ordinary life. So I didn’t go that path? This is so much better.
So I would tell my daughter that I know she’s going to dream, but if you’re going to dream, dream BIG. Make the next dream bigger than the last. It’s the dreams that propel you through the seasons in your life. They are your rudder and they steer. Challenge yourself to live bigger, to dream bigger, to laugh bigger, because as you do that you see how amazing life is. How diverse we are and how much we mold the person next to us. Have your daydreams and make your plans, but always remember that dreams are simply the outline of your story. We connect the points and change the direction.
So baby, dream big! Because Life is so much better than I ever could have dreamed it to be. It's real and it’s raw, tragic and beautiful, and it unfolds and flows to the next adventure.
