Today I'm grateful for...

dream

   [dreem] Show IPA noun, verb, dreamed ordreamt, dream·ing, adjective

-an aspiration; goal

-an object seen in a dream.

-a wild or vain fancy

I've noticed I have a problem. I have a horrible tendency to want what I don't have. I could be defined as a dreamer. I love to use the magical words,

'what if'?

"Gideon, What if we moved to a nicer apartment with a loft??"

"Gideon, what if we adopted a kitten?"

(I don't even like cats...)

"What if."

Two dangerous words.

Anytime I see an airplane floating up higher and higher in the air, I have a terrible ache to be on it.

Nevermind the fact that the plane is probably going to Albuquerque (my least favorite place on the planet), or some other location that I wouldn't want to go to. Nevermind the fact that I don't necessarily like to fly. A few months after I start a new job, I start to itch to try something else out, even if my job is great, and there is no reason to leave. Sometimes, I just want what I don't have, or to be where I'm not.

What an unhappy way to choose to live.

This is not to say by any means that dreaming must lead to inevitable misery, it just means that always wanting the next best thing, and never being satisfied with the now is sad.

I remember when I started dancing. I was quite bad, and what was worse, was I felt bad. The kind of bad that couldn't get better. But one day, my ballet professor told me I was a 'dream' to watch. Then, another compliment came. Then another. After a few more compliments, I began to dream:

what if I get good at this?

Anyone who knows me now knows that I love to dance.

I spent 4 years on a dance company. I've grown sentimental when I enter theaters, always thinking to myself, "I really should be backstage preparing to perform, instead of sitting in the audience with normal clothing on.

(as opposed to my beloved tights, leotards, and bare feet)

How I miss that wonderful thrill of dancing on stage!

I miss the sensational butterflys that would tickle me the moment before and after I felt the stage lights on my powdered skin. Each show, and I mean that with all sincerity, was magic. There is nothing, nothing in the world, like the feeling of performing something that you love with all of your essence. How I miss it.

While I was still in school, I was accepted into a masters program studying dance. I was trying to decide whether I would serve a mission (which would have been an absolute dream) or pursue my education in dance (another fantastic prospect) when- my gideon proposed that we spend every day together for the rest of forever.

This made my decision easy: instead of going to masters school, or serving a mission, I would marry a boy who I loved very much.
There are days though; days that I hate when I sometimes wonder- where would I be if I wasn't married? Would I be in graduate school in Utah? Or perhaps auditioning in New York City? Traveling abroad? On a mission speaking a different language? The possibilities are endless (for the good and the bad) when you use the dreamy words 'what if'.

Last night I had a dream.

The details are kind of foggy, but I know this: I wasn't married. I don't know what city I was in, but it was big. It was nighttime, and I was standing looking outside my window. The lights went on forever, and the traffic was jammed, even though it was late. It reminded me of a night I spent in St. Petersburg while I was on tour dancing.



It could have been the exact window.

But in my dream, I was alone.

And there was a distict sadness in my loneliness.

I could tell I had just finished a performance, as my hair had just been released from a tight bun, and I could feel fake eyelashes and the heaviness of stage makeup on my face. Being a performer in a big city has been a dream of mine ever since I started dancing. But this actual 'dream' wasn't what I thought it would be like. I was sad. I had no one to kiss goodnight.

No one to hold my hand.

Looking out the window, I saw an ambulence drive past my building.

And then I awoke.

I wonder. I wonder if I wasn't married, if I would be still 'what if'ing. If I was single, living my dream of being a dancer in a big city, I wonder if I would stay up at night looking out windows wishing so badly that I had someone to snuggle up to. I wonder if more than anything, I would want a companion who I could laugh with. I wonder if I would be willing to give up everything I had for what I have now. I wonder. But I think I actually know.


There are some days (I think you know the type I'm talking about) that are worse than others when it comes to living my life happily without haunting 'what if's. On those days when I'm already tired and grouchy, and supposed to go to work for 10 hours (smiling), then come home, make dinner (smiling), catch up on laundry, clean up (smiling), and then get a call asking me if I've done my visiting teaching (which of course I forgot about)- on those days- I just want to burst into tears, find a black hole, and jump into it.

Those are few and far between, hard, sad days.

But most days, I'm more than happy to drive to a job where I work for fun, nice people who treat me well, and pay me weller (I get free massages. Talk about dream.). Once I'm done at work, I'm really more than happy to go home to my sweet gideon who showers me with hugs and kisses the minute I walk in the door. I'm happy to make and eat dinner with my hubby, and wrap up the day with discussions on life (and on occasion, with ice cream). If I had to choose right now between taking the last year of my life away, and going down a different path that led to my 'dreams', and keeping my life the way it is right now, (as mundane as somedays it seems)

I would choose the latter.

...because this is the real dream.

I have someone to love, who loves me, and we're going to be together today, tomorrow, and all the days after that.


What if I already have everything I'll ever really need? I think I do.