By Phyllis
I’ve been giving this topic a lot of thought since Shirley announced it as the theme of the January newsletter. I’ve come to the conclusion that at this stage in my life, I don’t have any dreams. To me, a dream is something you want badly and have a level of certainty you can achieve it at some time in the future.
When I was young, I did have big dreams. One of them was to become a performer. One of my biggest regrets is not that my dream didn’t come true, but that I never even tried. It never occurred to me, for example, to enroll in the theater arts program at college. How could I have not thought to do even that? Actually, I know why: I lacked the imagination in my youth to have big dreams for myself. I have to give myself credit, though, for going to college at all. My dad was dead set against me going, but I defied him, persevered and did it anyway. What a great decision that turned out to be! While my BA in psychology was not particularly useful for specific jobs I would have liked to do, like counseling, it was more than adequate for jobs that just required a degree. More importantly, college opened up the world to me, which would never have happened if I’d stayed home on the farm like my dad wanted.
Anyway, back to dreams. Although I don’t have really substantial dreams for the future, I have what could be called mini-dreams. I’ve travelled all over the world, but I haven’t been to New Zealand, French Polynesia, Russia, or a host of other places I would like to visit. I’ve been to scores of live performances – plays, concerts, karaoke nights – but there are scores more to enjoy. Although I’ve read thousands of books, thousands more come out every year.
But in considering this theme, I realized I do have a dream. I have four granddaughters who are all grown up and well on their way to good lives, which whom I spent a lot of time when they were younger. I also have two younger granddaughters (9 and 8) and two great-granddaughters (8 and 3) to create memories with. I consider this to be more than a mini-dream; it’s a full-fledged, potentially life-changing dream that I will achieve!
Whether your dreams are major in scope or mini-dreams like most of mine, I hope you’re able to bring at least some of them to life in 2022.
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