Now I love my old curmudgeon, his lordship, but sometimes the man drives me nuts! Today we were at Lowes looking for house paint. We walked in the door and he got distracted by their display of how-to books. He’d been talking about installing a fence extension from the backyard to the street and putting a flower bed in front of it, so I wasn’t surprised when he picked up a landscaping book and pondered over it for several minutes.
In the back of my mind I was jumping up and down and screaming, “YES!!!” because he’s one of those individuals who has NO interests or hobbies — which means when he retires in a year or so he’s going to be wearing this perpetual expression that says, “Please entertain me???” I’m shuddering already… So THIS was a big deal for me. HUGE deal seeing him flip through this book.
Perhaps you can imagine then how my heart sank when he put the book down and started to walk away. “Aren’t you going to get it?” I asked, my voice wobbling a little in disappointment. “No. We can’t afford to do anything right now anyway. I’ll get it later.” But I KNOW this man. I’ve lived with him for over 44 years and I know that LATER is somewhere down the road in eternity! I was devastated…
Then suddenly something poured out of my mouth. I want to say they were words of wisdom, but if so they didn’t come from me. It was an honest to goodness epiphany. “You always say that, but you never come back and do anything about it. THAT’S one of the reasons you’re so down-hearted all the time. You have no dreams to live ‘in to’. Nothing to look forward to doing. You always put it off until later, and later never comes. What’s wrong with thinking and planning and dreaming about it in the meantime?”
He looked at me for a moment as if to disagree, then he picked the book up and put it in the cart. (I didn’t want to appear too eager to give him something else to get excited about, but I picked up two more — Decks and Backyard Ideas — and chucked them in the cart.)
I was flyin’ high on the way home thinking FINALLY he’d shown an interest in something. FINALLY he had something to DREAM about. But then a thought occurred to me. Where were MY dreams? The thought stopped me dead in my tracks. I sat in the car confused and befuddled and suddenly depressed. Where WERE my dreams?
I thought back over all my years of raising kids. Drollery and I were so careful not to live our lives vicariously through our youngens. In the first place neither of us had time to do that. Droll was working and going to school. I had two jobs between shuttling kids from one end of the valley to the other. There was no time for me to be a helicopter mom. But we were always supportive of whatever dreams our kids had. And as I sat there in the car today I came to the startling realization I’ve always “dreamed by proxy” through whatever dreams my family had.
Probably the culmination of those dreams for me was when all three of them graduated from Weber State University at the same time. It was shortly after that I started feeling a bit lost…
(Had run to JC Penney’s a few hours after graduation for a picture and they forgot all their bells and whistles — cords, medallions, stoles… I was so frustrated with them! Ok… So maybe I WAS living through them all a little vicariously. 😦 )
Be that as it may, it was quite a shocker for me today to realize that I don’t have any dreams of my own to look forward to. My bucket list was never long. Two things: buy and learn to play piano, go to Ireland and Scotland. When my mom passed away I took some of the money she left me and bought a piano and took lessons… I was about 40 years too late! Going to Ireland and Scotland? Well, we have a cruise around the British Isles booked for September of next year. Right now it’s hard to even envision it as a dream. It’s way too far away.
So here I sit tonight wondering what in the world kind of dreams I should be having, looking forward to. You know what? I have no clue. When I was doing the Am I ready for the open sea? post on Friday I think it dawned on me for the first time that I’m really at a transitional point in my life. Plato commented: It came in its time. A seed at some point breaks open to seek the sun. If he’s right, maybe there’s still some dreams out there for me I just haven’t stumbled on yet. I’m going to have to watch where I step, aren’t I…
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Picture Credits:
Dream it — megnocero.com
Fortune cookie — nazafit.com.au
Impromptu Promptlings 
In this moment it may feel like there’s nothing, but we never know what is just around the next corner which suddenly ignite that “dream boat.” So, you may just find yourself facing a dream in a moment. The possibilities are endless!
I think it was Fivel (An American Tale) who sang, “Never say never.”
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Hopefully you are right!!! 🙂
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My dreams…..
I’m finding that I’ve been focusing on making the most of living in my NOW….so much so that I guess I’m riding in the same boat C.
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I get that. It doesn’t leave any breathing room, does it… No tine to imagine or plan.
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That about sums it up C!
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Ok, I haven’t gone past “Sometimes the man drives me nuts!” (I will soon.) In the meantime, I’m sitting here on the other side of the world laughing my head off that someone else suffers from the same, insane version of nutterism as I do. Yep I love him to bits, but OMG he drives me nuts.
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Nutterism! What a wonderful word! Does your hubby have an addiction to subscribing to magazines that he never reads, too??? 😮
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Absolutely NOT!!! Everything in our life is now electronic with no paid subscriptions at all.
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For a number of reasons, I spent most of my life not expecting to live to see 30. Now nearing 60, I realize I’m pretty much in the same boat. Never had hopes and dreams for myself. I lived for my daughters after we escaped domestic violence, but never gave myself a thought. Your post is a wake-up call for me, thank you.
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I’m glad it resonated with you, Sheri. In a domestic violence situation, I would think it would be very hard to think beyond tomorrow or the next day. I’m glad you were able to resolve your situation. A friend of mine was just talking this week about coming to the end of our life and thinking, “What the h*ll was that?” Every now and then I fear that’s exactly what it will be like for me.
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You know Cheryl everybody has to have something they are passionate about to get them up in the morning. You dream. You spend most of your life selling your time to a career and raising kids, running them around, teaching them to read, and try to fit your passions into the bit of time that’s left. You keep your dreams alive and keep your ideals together. One day you will have the time to do those things and freedom to be yourself. Then retirement comes along and the kids are flown and suddenly you have the time.
For me I dreamt of being able to write, read and travel. I imagined I would write my books and if I worked hard enough I would find a niche. I would get published and find a small readership who would appreciate my strange perspective on life. I thought that this would prove immensely satisfying.
I set up my blog to display all my creative endeavours and express my views frankly without censorship. I imagined finding a group of like-minded people all over the world to argue and banter with.
But you know sometimes those dreams don’t work out as you planned. All those decades of dreaming don’t result in the idyll you concoct in your head.
No matter how hard you work you hit frustration. What looked as if it would be satisfying turns out to be frustrating. The dreams don’t live up to the reality. On my blog the exchanges become personal and nasty instead of debating and thought provoking. The books languish. It is time to move on.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that you can’t look into the future and plan too much. You have to find something to get up for, be realistic and do things with passion, but be flexible and prepared to change. There will be frustration, sadness, disappointment and hopefully there will be fun, fulfilment and satisfaction.
Life’s a journey. We can’t see round the bend. We have to make the most of where we are and be prepared for failure and success. We have to live the moment and celebrate the life we have.
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Your advice is so sound a realistic, Opher. And I know your experience bears that out. Learning to live in the moment… Maybe for me that’s what this is all about. Lord knows I have a hard, hard time staying in the moment. But I will feel much better when some kind of passion rears it glorious head! 😉 For what it’s worth, I love your blog!
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Transitions are a funny place to be in – kinda feels like being in limbo till everything clicks into place. And it will. You’r doing all the rights things to get there 🙂
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Raili, you’re absolutely right. Limbo is exactly what it feels like. So I just stand around with my finger up my nose like a two-year-old! (rolls eyes…)
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Don’t eat the booger !!
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LMBO!!! Well THAT part of the comparison hadn’t occurred to me! Till now. 😀
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Pingback: Not Just an Hour, Not Just a Day: Meeting Your Needs | Elixir: Creative and Reflective Writing
Once again, it is as if you are writing about my life, Calensariel, not yours; but then you write so passionately and eloquently about your life, you take my breath away. Okay, here I am: after several weeks of counselling I have got to this point, well we, the amazing woman I talk to once a week, and I have got to this point. I have spent a good part, no, most of, my life trying to look after the needs of others, of my loved ones. I’ve done such a good job of meeting their needs I forgot to look after my needs. I don’t mean I forgot to eat or rest or see friends, I forgot the needs of my soul. The next thing my counsellor and I have attempted is work out what my needs are (I started with writing and stumbled on from there). Then I was confronted with the idea that it’s NOT selfish to have needs and to ask they be met! My mantra for the next few weeks – for the rest of my life? – is, ‘what are my needs?’ Scary, scary stuff. Where to next? I have no idea. One step at a time is all I can take. I suspect part of my problem (apart from spending my life catering to the needs of others) is retirement; after all, I spent an entire career being told who to teach, when to teach, what to teach, where to teach (and in some cases how to teach), which meeting to attend, etc., etc. Like your hubby, my career consisted of responding to bells and other people’s time frames (yes, it’s a great job, but it’s all about timetables). He may, like me, find the change quite dislocating. I’m not saying you have responsibility for what he will go though, just pointing out that when teachers retire it can be hard for them to devise a life for themselves. Maybe that garden is a good idea after all?
I hope you don’t mind me blurting all this out. I completely understand what you’re going through and send, from across the world and through different seasons, my best wishes as you (both) face the coming changes but never think for a moment that your needs are selfish, and your fears about hubby’s impending retirement are mistaken. Thanks for a marvellous post.
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Janet, there is nothing as satisfying to my soul as knowing that something I’ve written has resonated with someone. I so appreciated your comment. I even just read it to Drollery! I think maybe he needed to hear about getting our needs met not being a selfish thing, too. Maybe we’re all in that place? I will sure be thinking about YOUR journeying as I think about my own. I hope we both get headed in a soul-satisfying direction. 🙂
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