The Dream Revival

I am living a version of my life that my younger self would have perhaps imagined but my older self forgot.

I dreamed big as a child. I dreamed big as a young adult. Somewhere in my thirties, my dreams became smaller. It was sometime between leaving a job I loved, and studying the things I loved, and releasing the men I thought I should love. That isn’t an easy thing to admit. But it makes sense. When life is rich and abundant, dreaming is an extension of our lived experience.

At some point, the dreaming became goal setting — measured and structured, but not quite smart. It was a to-do list rather than embodiment of an expansive existence. I am good at ticking the check box.

But dreaming in the darkness. That takes Herculean effort. Breaking inertia feels like defying physics and the rules of reality. But darkness is where the dreams take on a life of their own. Herculean efforts have been undertaken by humanity since the beginning of time. And we know that inertia breaks all the time.

My four-year-old self has taken the lead on this. We’re sitting in my childhood bedroom and she is showing me the dictionary we made with pictures to illustrate the word. She turns to A, and there is a word I know she didn’t know when we first made it. She may have added it later when I wasn’t looking or when she decided I needed it.

And right under it, is a picture of us smiling.