What do you hope for?

Chel Owens

I’ve always wanted to fly.

I’m not talking airplanes, either. I’m talking: self-automated, magic flight. In my childhood nighttime dreams I’d run -fast, faster, faster!- till the momentum or movement or fairy dust accelerated my hopeful person into the sky.

I have other dreams, of course, but I fear to share them. I fear that voicing my wants, desires, and wishes will result in disaster. If, for example, I’d always wanted perfect vision, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Telling another would surely result in Fate crashing a car into mine and causing blindness, afflicting me with a genetic condition that affects sight, or causing one eye to randomly fall out.

Hey; it could happen!

As you can see, I’ve a real problem looking forward to things. From a psychological mush of my parents using upcoming events as rewards I might lose; my always putting others before me in true, selfless motherhood; and a desire to avoid the pain of disappointment, I do not anticipate positive events.

Instead, I numb. Instead, I cry. Instead, I sadly shelve my glowing orbs of potential dreams and tell myself to look elsewhere.

Elsewhere is safer.

And yet, I do have dreams. I think. Waaaaaay back in high school, our teacher had us make a bucket list of things we wanted to do in life. Mine included traveling to Europe, learning another language, and …I don’t remember.

Wishing and anticipating and doing were so much easier then -you know, before I had to wait for the ol’ money tree to produce something besides sour grapes.

How about you? Have you ever had a dream? Do you still? Do you share your dreams, or hold them like secret treasures?

—————-

Here be what I wrote in the past week:
Wednesday, October 30: Opened up about the elephant in the room in “Depression and Donuts (and an Elephant).”

Thursday, October 31: Shared my first entry in the Halloweensie contest, “Midnight.”

Also, wrote an entry for this year’s contest, “Scampy Mouse.”

Friday, November 1: Winner of the Weekly Terribly Poetry Contest. Congratulations to Ruth Scribbles!

Saturday, November 2: Announced the 50th Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest. The theme is FIFTY (go figure). PLEASE ENTER!

Sunday, November 3: “The Healthy Benefits of Popcornopolis,” in response to reading the front of my favorite, very unhealthy snack.

Monday, November 4: An inspirational quote by Charles Bukowski, in the form of his poem.

Tuesday, November 5: “Since the Bombs Fell: Three.”

Wednesday, November 6: Today.

 

©2019 Chelsea Owens

42 thoughts on “What do you hope for?”

  2. I just want to be happy – and have a bit of security – instead of being worried all the time as to where the rent and the weekly grocery bill is going to come from. Having said that – such “worries” blinds me from the reality of how blessed I really am!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Great topic! I equate dreams with goals, and I’ve always been about setting goals. Most of my goals have been personal, but I also have set goals for my family. Some of these I share, and others are locked away within. I can’t tell you why I reveal some and not others, but why not set achievable dreams for yourself? One of my current internal goals (I haven’t shared this with anyone yet, so lucky you, 😎) is to write a children’s book that I will someday read to my future grandchild. Achievable? Yes. Do I think is is going to happen? Yes. Will I feel like a failure if it never happens? No. Some of my satisfying moments have come when I’ve accomplished something I’ve worked hard for. I think most people can relate.

    This past weekend my wife and I got to watch our son following his dream. He is twenty-seven and coaching football at the college level. It was so fun watching him because I could fell how passionate and engaged he was with his players. I was so happy for him because he went after his dreams and made them happen. My dreams for him were simple. I wanted to raise a son who was a decent person and treated others with respect. As we were watching him do his thing last weekend, I felt especially grateful because I knew that both he and I had accomplished our goals.

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    1. That’s beautiful, Pete, and you’re absolutely right. I keep hearing about how my perspective is wrong, but not that it’s wrong because I treat dreams as fantasies and not as goals!

      Like

  4. I hope you don’t dread everything in the future and that some of your dreams come true proving it a possibility. I’ve also thought it would be pretty cool to be able to fly like a bird. They have such a wonderful view of the world.

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  5. Yup! I definitely have these dreams too. I want to learn Spanish. I want to someday work in the medical field. I also want to write a bestselling book one day (which btw my husband just told me is like wanting to be a movie star… not possible 😭) Man that hurt. And it made me think, am I really that far off? Just like your dreams, I see all of these to be doable. I’m not saying I want to be a fairy or live on Mars…

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  8. One dream I have always had but realize now will not come true is to spent time in Ireland/Scotland. When I was younger and raising a family there was no money for that. Now that I am retired and have the money my health will not allow me to travel that far from home. So I look at videos and books and still dream!

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      1. But don’ stop dreaming. Although I won’t make it to Ireland I have enjoyed reading about it and seeing all the beautiful scenes in books and videos. Not the same – but still good.

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  9. I don’t know. I’m at an age where I’ve given up on a lot of my dreams–playing basketball professionally, rapping, breakdancing my way to Olympic gold. And writing is becoming more and more difficult to do for some reason. More often than not the words just aren’t there and if they are I question whether I have the skill to find them.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Believe you me: you are among the talented. It sounds like you fear to voice for similar reasons as mine.

      This may not make sense, but write anyway. Write in a journal or on a napkin at McDonald’s or the back of a bill in the mail -but write just something every day. Expand to a three sentence story sometimes, a scrap of poetry, or just a profound thought.

      Liked by 2 people

          1. Thanks for the encouragement. I have all these story ideas and they never seem to make it to the page. Or they stay in the draft zone forever. And I’ve taken creative writing courses at our local university and I’ve survived some very brutal workshops. I don’t know. Maybe I have too many irons in the fire.

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  10. Some of my dreams have been fulfilled, and how fortunate I consider myself because of that. I have a wonderful family, a ministry I love, and I’ve had a book published. Other dreams have yet to come to fruition. But I feel that those are unfulfilled because of practical reasons – the season of life I’m in and so forth. I look forward to the next chapter, when kids are on their own, when I can work again on achieving the rest of dreams.

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  11. I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
    When hope was high
    And life worth living. (Le Miz)

    My dream has always been time travel with an invisibility cloak thrown in for good measure. I would start with going back to Jerusalem 2000 years ago just to see what actually went on. But I would spend most of my time in London in the 19th century. The invisibility cloak is for safety as death may come easily to my romantic view of history.

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    1. I’ll brush up on my James Herriot in order to learn Yorkshire. 🙂 I’m fairly certain I could never grasp Welsh, though.

      Pete helped me understand that my dreams don’t need to all involve a pipe.

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      1. I should have known you’d found her before! My therapist was just all “you should look into her” and I’m all like “I can’t get past the vulnerability part.” But it’s still working on me, I guess.

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