Time--Running Out of Somedays

I was listening to one of my favorite songs the other day….

Yeah, one of my favorite songs is sung by a frog. You got a problem with that?

So I was enjoying the part about following your dreams and how you hear destiny calling your name when I heard it:

Someday I’ll find it—

The rainbow connection—

The lovers,

The dreamers,

And me.

And it hit me. Crap! I’m running out of somedays!

No, I’m not ill or anything—I’m just getting old. (I refuse to accept that I’m old now, but I will admit I’m progressing in that direction.)

Not sure what made me so introspective that day, but it got me thinking about how many people run out of time before they realize any of their dreams. Of course, as the rock star said, our dreams change as time passes, but more often we just give up on them—convince ourselves that we’d really do this than that anyway. But when we abandon our dreams like worn out refrigerators, they (the dreams, not the refrigerators, though the thought of being haunted by a refrigerator is amusing in a surreal way) come back to haunt us like bittersweet nightmares.

When I was a child, our mother used to entertain my sister and me by drawing pictures of our favorite comic book characters. She had real talent. Only months before she died, my mother mentioned how she’d once dreamed of becoming an interior decorator, but had instead married young and decorated only her own homes. Did she regret it? Not really. But the dream never died, and she wondered “What if?” all her life. I think many people suffer that same fate. Is it because we choose dreams that are too far above us? Perhaps we just aren’t willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve them. Or do we just drift into other things and let our somedays play out without ever moving toward our goals?

When I took my brief detour into melancholy, I had already realized several of the dreams I’d listed when I graduated from high school:

1.     Be first in family to earn a college degree—check.

2.     Become a staff writer for a newspaper—check.

3.     Work for a large company writing and editing their publications—check.

4.     Write novels—check.

5.     Become a published author—oops.

That last one eluded me. But since I’ve cut about 40,000 words, my first novel appears to be on track for publication. I’ve finished a novella, started two more novels, and have plots for three more novellas.

Ok, so I worked for a regional newspaper instead of a national one, for a division of that large company instead of headquarters, and I didn’t get a big advance on my novel. I still feel a little like that country song, “Why Me Lord?” because I can’t think of one thing I’ve done that makes me deserve even to come close to fulfilling so many of my dreams.

Now I find that I need another dream to inspire me through the rest (may they be many) of my somedays. But I did have a Number 6 that I haven’t told you about, and I kind of suspect it’ll be enough to keep me writing as long as I can sit at a laptop—or even croak words into a mike. What do you think?

           

6.     Win a Hugo. *

(*author’s note: Please be aware that the author realizes that her chances of winning any award, much less a Hugo, for her novel are nil to none. The author will be ecstatic if a few people admit they enjoyed reading it. ( - : )

My Evolving Bucket List

An old 80s or 90s rock song—by Bad English, I think—includes a line that says something like, “…will it always be that the dream gets changed as it gets close to reality?” It is inevitable that our dreams, and with them our bucket lists, are changed as time passes. Some things we accomplish, some things we put on the back burner, and some things we decide are no longer important to us.

When I was a child, I thought if I could just own my own horse and get my pilot’s license, my life would be complete. I did eventually own a dark bay half-quarter horse filly for a few years, during which I realized I really like to look at horses. Ride them—not so much.

When I graduated from high school, I thought my life would be complete if I could get a college education, marry my high school sweetheart, get my pilot’s license, and make a living writing. I did all those things except get my pilot’s license, but not in the order I expected and not exactly in the way I expected. I did them—well, kind of inside out. And in the process, I learned to love photography. Hadn’t even been in my sights.

When I finally graduated from college, I already had a husband and family, and I thought my life would be complete if I could get a job I enjoyed that would allow me to contribute to the family income and work on that novel that was beginning to percolate in the back of my head. I got a job I enjoyed that included writing and editing and paid enough I could support myself, and I eventually completed that novel—plus a novelette that started percolating somewhere in the middle of the novel. I also did a lot of other things I never dreamed I would, but somehow I don’t think learning to weld or standing on the hood of the largest truck in the world the first time its engine was started or planning a party for 10,000 people would ever have been in my bucket list anyway. And somewhere along the way, getting a pilot’s license fell out.

When I retired, I thought my life would be complete if I could learn to water color, finish visiting all the national parks of the US, go to Scotland, and get my first book published. I’ve visited Yellowstone and Scotland, and I’ve found a publisher for my first book. I took watercolor lessons and realized maybe I should stick to photography.

So you’d think I’d be about finished with my bucket list, right? Um…remember what I said about adding things? Now I want to go to Scotland again, because the sequel to the first book is set there. Then come the two other sequels and the two sequels to the first novelette, and the stand-alone novel. I also want to go to Wales.

And that’s how I like it. I should always have another book to write, another trip to take, something new to learn. Because if your bucket list contains all the things you want to do before you die, and you complete it, you’ve symbolically completed your life, right? I hope the day I die, I’ve just thought of something else to add to my bucket list.

Dream Houses Can Be Nightmares

Twitter friends Johanna Harness (johannaharness) and John Ross Barnes (barnestorm2004) recently were discussing dreams about houses, a subject I find intriguing. I've read that when you dream about a house, it's actually a metaphor for  your own psyche. If that's true, I must have a very strange psyche, because I've dreamed about a lot of very strange houses.

But the most memorable was a fairly normal-looking three-story house with a large attic. I lived on the first two floors, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't walk up the wide, carved staircase to the attic. Something malevolent lived on the third floor and would allow no one to pass. I dreamed about the house repeatedly over a period of months and never was able to contain the gut-clinching panic I felt every time I started up.

Then one day at a family reunion, my father and sister and I started discussing strange dreams and discovered that we all were dreaming about the same house. And not only that, but we were all dreaming about it over and over, and none of us was able to get to the attic. 

Months went by, and every time we were together, we discussed "the house." Finally I dreamed I performed some kind of exorcism that walled off the malevolent presence and, though I still had to fight fear every step of the way, climbed the stairs to the attic. It was filled with beautiful antique furniture, jewelry and fabrics that looked like it could be worth thousands of dollars. More importantly, much of it met my needs to beautify my living space below. It was magnificent.

Several months passed before the family got together again, but when we did, the subject of the dream came up as usual.

"You know," said my sister, "I haven't had that dream for quite a while."

"Neither have I," added my father. "Did anyone ever get to the attic?"

I admitted that I had, and after thinking about it for a while, that I hadn't had the dream since. So I figured out about what week I'd reached the attic.

Not one of us had dreamed about the house since then.