Those Dreams

I’m not sure exactly when you decided to get a new dream.

Remember the old one? You carried it around in your back pocket for so long. Sometimes it felt like it weighed you down, but you knew in the end it would set you free. Sometimes after a high school football game, you’d go home and climb it to bed and pull that dream out. You would clench it in your fist while you waited for someday.

There wasn’t a thing wrong with that dream. In fact, I think that was your destiny.

The thing you wanted most, that you traded for what you want now? Yeah, THAT dream. Oh, that dream was gonna take you places.

You were well on your way to changing the world.

Remember all the endless conversations it created for you? Oh, how you used to fill up on ice cream, gum drops and peanut butter cups and describe all the intricate details of it all. It seemed so big. Your tiny hands could barely hold that tablespoon; how were they going to hold something as big as a dream like yours? But I knew we could do it. 

But then you grew up. We all grew up. And everybody got a new dream. We all got the white picket fence, 2.5 kid, wrap-around porch dream. So, you decided to box up the other one and put it in the attic. You couldn’t let either of them go, but your hands couldn’t hold them both at the same time. 

Because there are some dreams that just don’t have room for companions.

You really can’t have it all; at least, not right now. Let me tell you, Honey, you need to do some things before you grow a garden, buy an umbrella holder, put up a mailbox. You need to live a little. Maybe a lot. You got too discontent with waiting. God hasn’t brought the love of your life yet, so you’ve been going out to find them on your own. I wish you’d just be okay with the idea that your time hasn’t come.

There’s going to be plenty of time for wedding registries, tire swings and flower deliveries. But it seems YOU have other things to do first.

You need to follow the clouds. You need to get familiar with sprinting through the airport, spending your heart on adventure, sleeping in the desert. Get used to being broke of money and having a wealth of laughter. Be ready for coffee to fuel those late nights of painting the world. Know that when Celine Dion comes on the radio, you’ve got to blast that junk like it’s 1997. And that Ego waffles are still an acceptable dinner.

I just don’t think it’s time that we give up on those back pocket dreams. Not just yet. I think they’ve got a little life left in them. I think they can still take us places.

But I’m going to need you to trust me on this one. I’m going to need you to cut loose of the big white house, the Pinterest wedding, Scrabble in the family room. Because all of that is going to come. And some people have that life now; some people are living that dream and oh, how it is glorious. But the time for that in our lives, isn’t here yet. Before it gets here, before you begin a life that you will love, but that will bring new dreams; don’t lose hope or forget about those back pocket dreams. Oh, those dreams that followed you around in your trapper keeper and your bright green lunch box.

It’s not time to let them go… not yet.