Dreams. They were so real I could taste them, touch, breathe the very air of wherever it was that my dreams were taking me. It’s been such a long time since I had a dream like that, a dream that was so real it became a need to go there and see it, smell it and feel it in my waking life. I dreamed of Ireland, Scotland, the whole of Great Britain. I needed to go there and walk through the moors, stand on top of Ben Nevis, breathe the salty air and hear the crashing of ocean on the Isle of Skye. I needed desperately to walk the lanes and of an Irish village and wander off through a lonely castle. Westminster Abbey and The Tower, I needed to touch the stone and sit in silence to hear the echoes from the past, perhaps my past, who can say. I dreamed of forests so mysterious that surely there must still be at least one unicorn, one patch of days more simple and beautiful where life was filled with wondrous things. Oh, but these were wonderful dreams and as I dreamed them some how in my heart, I let myself believe that because I needed to see and do these things, I would. And then… My dreams died.
When those dreams died, I felt bitter at first, then after a time I found a way to compensate for the loss. There will never be a way to reawaken dead dreams, but I can view ghostly images of what might have been. There are photographs, music, books, magazines and video of these places. I can see it all this way. So, I did.
And now, we have been talking about taking a once in a lifetime trip to the British Isles and Ireland. We’ve been talking about it for about 8 or 10 years now. To tell the truth, at this point I have come to terms with the fact that I will never see those places where my soul longs to be, not in this lifetime. Perhaps I’ll pass over it all on my last journey as I leave this earth. Besides the dream, when I was young was to go there and linger, to experience every nuance, not to pass through on the way to something else. It is indeed sad to watch your dreams die before your eyes. That’s the nature of the beast when when you share your life with someone else. It was my dream not my husbands and I can’t fault him. What I should have done was made my dreams come true. My husband lives his life as his father did, on his terms, in his own good time.
Do I still dream? Not really. I’ve had Putt Putt Golf on my Bucket List for 30 years. It’s apparently not on my husbands priority list to help me check things off of my list. Once in awhile I’ll throw something out there that I would like to do but it just gets shot down most of the time.. but someday one might just slip through.
There is always hope.
