"Sellin' the Dream"

I'm a dreamer. I always have been. When I was about seven, I got it in my head that, if I just ran fast enough while flapping my arms at juuuuust the right angle, I'd be able to fly. What shot me down? An uncle who thought I was "cute." When I overheard him laughing at my naivete, I sat down on the porch step--and never tried to fly again.

It's not that my uncle was wrong. He knew I couldn't fly, and no amount of dreaming and scheming and flapping my arms would have gotten me further off the ground than I could jump. My dream really was too big.

So I got a different dream. I decided I wanted to be an astronaut. If I couldn't fly with my own two arms, I'd use technology to get me there. This time, the ones who shot me down were my colleagues in the second grade. They thought it was weird that my heroes were Sally Ride and Amelia Erhart, instead of Barbie, My Little Pony, and Care Bears.

I cared more about what they thought about me than I did my dreams, so I tucked them away, and made it my life's mission to be popular. That was a hard one. But eventually I figured out how to dress, do my makeup, do my hair, and say enough witty things that I was tolerable in society.

I won't bore you with all the dreams I've had, and all the people I've allowed to crush them. Suffice it to say, I've always been a "dreamchaser," and that's almost never been a term of endearment.

I turned 30 a few days ago, and I've found a new resolve: I'm going to be the "dreamcatcher" now. I'm old enough to know I can't fly with my arms, and that I can't work at 70-hour week at a job and be a stay-home mom. I'm also old enough to know that most people who deride me for my dream are people who either can't dream for themselves, or who have had their dreams stolen, and didn't have it in them to dream again.

I find it ironic that my Big Dream is now so big that it requires me to help other dreamers to awaken the dreams they've tucked away after "reality" snatched their joy. It requires me to help them to see that their greatest God-given gift is their ability to dream.

The greatest irony, though, is how many people are like wounded animals, who snap at you when you try to help them. They've been so hurt by the "dreamstealers," that they just want that part of them to be forgotten. It's more comfortable that way. So, they accuse me of "sellin' the dream," as if it really were possible to hoodwink a person into wanting more for themselves. A person I respect highly defines a dream as "a compelling sense of what should be in your life, accompanied by a growing sense of responsibility to do something about it."

My dear friends, if I have taken the time to sit down with you and explain some of what I do, or if I do so in the future, please remember that I do so because I see a dream in you, and while I may not know what that dream is, or how you'll achieve it, I do know the power of a dream. I also know the power of not having a dream: "Without a vision, people perish."

I am not afflicted with delusions of grandeur. I know I have a lot to learn. That's part of what it means to have a dream: there has to be a gap between where you start, and where you're going. But this time, I'm not letting go. I'm not getting distracted. I'm shooting for the mark, and I will catch my dreams.