I have written about unrealized dreams but this time I want to share with you one of my dreams for the future that will never happen the way I hoped. Have you ever had this fantasy about the way things we going to turn out? It is right there in your mind’s eye as clear as crystal. And then you realize it was about as clear as Disney glass you got by buying a Happy Meal at McDonalds and you are Goofy. That is how this dream feels to me right now.
Picture it if you will. There I am looking good for an old man. I have retired after a successful career of making people’s lives better. Even though I never got rich I made enough to have a comfortable retirement. The retirement home sits in the hill country around Austin, Texas overlooking Lake Travis. A xeriscaped yard makes the need to mow something that my grandkids will not be able to use to get some cash out of this old dude. They will have to get it the old fashioned way: emotional blackmail. A little trail leads down to a nice little dock where my pontoon boat sits waiting to be taken out. The house is small but comfy. It is nothing to get excited about. It is just big enough without being too much work. And the back deck is the place where the morning cup of coffee is enjoyed with the woman I have loved since I was young. Sadly that dream is gone.
Don’t get me wrong. The house on the lake with the view and the boat and the emotional blackmailing lawn are still part of my dream. For me the best part was going to be retiring there with the love of my life. That love has gone. It is sad for me to think about what might have been. I had that in my head for years and now I have to clean the glass. The crystal cracked. What am I saying? It shattered! That really hurts more than I thought. It wasn’t until very recently that I starting thinking about that. Loosing someone you once cared about has so many levels of loss that it is hard to find the words to describe it all. That is one of the reasons I write. It is to exorcise those demons like Richard Simmons on meth. (And yes that image scares me as much as it does you.)
But just because that dream has died it doesn’t mean a new one can’t take its place. My life is taking so many new directions that I can’t even imagine where it is going to take me. There is one thing I do know: it will be something new that I can’t even dream about yet.
I think that is the thing that hurt the most when Ken died. We had a plan. It wasn't grand but I had planned to grow old with my best friend. We were gonna be that old coupe in church every Sunday - overdressed and holding hands. Several months after he died, I suddenly realized that I had no plan...no future dream to work toward or fantasize about. Figuring out the new normal was bad enough but.. how do I plan a future I don't even want? I can't say I have a plan now. The new normal is working out ok. But I have no idea what I want or where I will be. So I just keep pushing on and hope God puts in my path what I need. And the future will create itself. Make sense? -Lori
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