The Importance of Dreams

I'm not talking about the midnight visitors that show up to tell us a tale - scary or sublime. These are the self-created dreams, the ones to which we can hold fast when the world around us seems to be too much to bear.

Perhaps ten or twelve years ago I had reached The End. Fed up with my existence (no stretch of the imagination would let me call it a Life), not seeing anything ahead of me that was any different than the darkness around me, I was ready to throw in the towel. To kill myself.

It's a despair that steals in, a thief of self-esteem, of self-value, self-determination, self-anything. It is anathema to Self, the important part of us that makes us who are, what we do and love and look forward to. I had no dreams, no goals except to make it through the day in which I was existing.

There was the tree alongside the freeway just past the Marin-Sonoma County line. I passed it everyday, eying and evaluating its worthiness. Its base is perhaps eight-feet below the surface of the road, approximately twenty feet in a straight line from the edge of pavement, an ancient eucalyptus with a diameter of at least seven feet. With enough speed, I could bridge that gap.

A bit farther was the concrete bridge abutment. At the end of a cut, separated from earth by a triangular sliver of sky. Steer for the gap, the driver's side would hit the concrete, old and solid, the car would either come to rest or squeeze through that space and plummet fifty feet down a hillside. Either way, I wouldn't care.

Enough. Enough of that, of old hopelessness, the life without dreams. I live.

For months, many months in that period, I fought the demon that stood on my shoulder, at my side, followed me through my days whispering to me, 'Do it, come on, do it. You're miserable, unhappy, nothing will change.'

To him, I said 'No! There must be more, there's got to be!'

And I was right. There is more, so much more if only we stop and look up, imagine, ask ourselves 'what do I want and how can I get it?'

They can't be impossible dreams, unachievable dreams, or they will become self-defeating and the demon will win because despair will surely follow. They must be realistic - within reach if only you climb high enough and stretch out your hand to pluck them up and are willing to shift your life story to meet them.

Most honestly, I didn't survive that time for anyone but myself. I didn't do it for my husband, my daughter or my mother-in-law. I did it for me. It had to be for me, or I would be back where I was, stuck in a swamp of hopelessness and misery.

I began to dream. Small at first, just little attainable wishes. So small that now, nearly ten years later I can't even remember most of them. One I do remember, was a little one. I wished that my husband would stop calling me 'mom', as if I am his mother, his nanny and caretaker. I already felt like that in many ways because, in many ways, he's helpless just as I am in some ways.

I wanted to separate from him, to create a life where I was my own person, able to do and decide for myself but I wasn't quite strong enough to break away. We went to counseling. We talked to each other through the counselor. I expressed my frustration with 'mom'. He expressed his about other things. We're still together and I still have my dream.

What is it? Ah! Speak your dreams and they might not come true, so I won't say, not here. Only inside where I can fan the flame, keep them burning and, when the time is right, set them free to expand from dream into reality, and then my fight with the demon will have been well and truly won.

Dare to dream. More importantly, hope to dream. Even if you can't see the way today, maybe you will tomorrow and it's that, that bright and shining Tomorrow toward which you need to guide your steps.

Best~
Philippa

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