Lost Dreams

I think one of the worst things that has happened to me because of all of the issues in the past year is that I have lost my ability to dream. I don’t mean when I close my eyes at night, I mean dream of the future in an anticipatory way. The incredible loss has robbed me of the ability to see good in the future or to even dare to dream of good in the future. I fear I have spent too long in survival mode to actually kick back into living mode. I worry that I am living my life from one crisis to another and I’m not sure how to stop. I try telling myself every morning that “this is the day that the Lord has made, I WILL rejoice and be glad in it” with great emphasis on the WILL part. I WILL rejoice, be happy and live this day to the fullest as if it were my last day on earth. I’m trying to “fake it ‘till I make it” a reality, because I am certainly not feeling like each day is a gift. I keep waiting for “when.” When I am a mother, when I am out of debt, when I feel like I can breathe – THEN I will be happy and THEN I will rejoice. But, we are supposed to find ways to dance in the rain, ways to find joy in everyday life, to praise the Lord even though our world has crumbled into disarray. I find it hard to be full of joy during my recent trials and difficulties, mostly because they feel never-ending. I find it hard to not let my circumstances drag me down and dictate my mood and attitude because my circumstances are forever in my face, jumping up and down on my chest, pulling my hair and screaming for my attention. They cannot be brushed under the rug or shoved aside for a sunnier outlook because they are around each and every corner, they lurk in the periphery and jump out at me at the slightest hint of a thought of good or positive things. But today I take a tentative step away from all the troubles. Today I will rejoice and be glad because I woke up and I am given another day of life. And I will try to dig up the past dreams I had.

I distinctly remember being asked as a senior in college where I thought I would be in 10 years. At 22, ten years felt like an eternity away, but now my ten year anniversary looms on the horizon. I don’t think I had a very clear picture of where I would be in 2014, but I had a general idea. After college I was going into the Peace Corps, that much I knew. I guess I figured after those two years, I would come home and settle down. Despite the fact that I didn’t date in high school or college, I assumed I would meet someone and get married. I knew I wanted a family in the future. I had hoped to have 3 maybe 4 biological kids separated by 2-3 years and then when those kids were older maybe in middle school, we would adopt a baby or two. And that was the life I imagined I would live. I figured I would work, maybe be lucky enough to stay home for a few years or work from home, or I would work and the hubby would stay home. I imagined taking vacations with my parents down the shore to our old stomping grounds in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware or Ocean City, Maryland. We would save and take the kids to Disney once or twice, maybe we would be really lucky and take the kids to Europe. I imagined the hubby and I finding time to take a bi-yearly vacation sans kids to rekindle the old flame. Just a nice, basic life. When I met Flaco and we married, I rearranged some of those dreams because of finances, but I still figured “someday” we would achieve parts of the dream. Some of the exotic vacations transferred to visiting his family in Nicaragua, but the dreams remained intact for the most part. Then, we decided to start a family. And our excitement turned into concern and our concern turned into a nightmare. We became a statistic, the one in eight couples who have trouble getting pregnant. And I watched my dreams crumble and the nightmare squeeze the life from us with it’s cold, dead hands. I patched up the dreams, eliminating the 3-4 biological kids and focusing on the adopted kids, hoping for 2 or 3. This seemed to work and the listing ship righted itself for a short time before the tempest crashed down, crushing and mangling the remaining dream dragging it down into the murky depths, to smother it by the pressure. Not even a life raft survived. It is from this light-less world that I reach out, grasping for some micro-piece of shining hope. It is from this world where the pressure is so intense it can flatten a solid steel ball, that I am trying to escape with nothing but my faith and my will to survive.

And, so this is why I don’t know how to dream anymore. Because it feels like dreams are meant to remain forever surreal, forever out-of-reach for me. Part of it is the fear that if I do dare to dream that will only seal the fate of the dream as non-attainable. My only dream right now is to just be “alright;” to not have the drama and calamities holding me hostage, to not have my heart ripped from my chest and replaced with a cold, iron fist, to survive, to live another day, to keep it all together keep moving forward to just keep moving. On good days I dare to dream of the magical phone call that will place my baby with me, but I hold the dream afar, I do not pull it to my chest and hold it as my own, I do not take ownership or build castles in the clouds with this dream. I let it float ethereally just out of reach and I watch it with detached fascination. I’m not even sure it is really mine or if I am seeing someone else’s dream. Hopefully, soon I will be able to dream again because it is a nice thing to be able to do. It is nice to look forward to a dream’s fruition with giddy anticipation. Maybe someday soon I will be able to recapture that ability. Today is not someday……