Because dreaming is easy and life is hard. Because when you dream, you make your own rules, but when you try to do something, the rules are made for you by the limitations of your own nature and the shape of the world you live in. Because no matter how much you win in your dreams, your gains are illusory, and you always come away empty-handed. But in life, whether you win or lose, you’ve always got something to show for it-even if it’s only a scar or a painful memory.
-Dream Girl- Elmer Rice
One of my all time favorite monologues from a play- this reached out and smacked me in the face on day and I haven't let it go since. Throughout my life, I've been a dreamer. And not like Martin Luther King or John Lennon. They dreamed of change and progress and peace.
(And if they didn't then I've misunderstood a LOT. )
My dreaming is more of an avoidance technique. For example, let's say I just worked 8 long hours on a Friday with the express knowledge that not only do I have to be back Saturday and Sunday bright and early- but that I can't go out that night since I have to responsible and get up at 5 a.m. And the nightlife scene in an hour away and an hour back. So, any going out is a three hour process.
There's so much I could do to change this. I could get another job, I could say screw fiancial security and just move out of my rent free home and get my own place or I could just go and deal with exhaustion in the morning.
I need a job. I can't take such a gamble with my savings when I have a very comfortable opportunity to save money up. And I would never give less than 100% to my team.
So, where does that leave me on a Friday night? Well. Borderline depressive, curled up in bed, lights on, and falling in and out of consciousness. It's that light sleep where you don't know if you're asleep or awake and when things that you are thinking of wrap you up in them and twist them and pull them and make the odd feel familiar. Such as the drive to work turning into a road trip. Or going out with people turning into me leading a karoke band. (By the way, my Van Halen was fine but I totally butchered Jesse's Girl....)
See, avoidance.
I didn't want to deal with the pain and confusion and the loneliness that comes from my current situation- I was tired of hearing that I should give it more time and I feel absolutely and completely one hundred percent trapped by my own fears, desires, and emotional fragility.
My quote is never far from my mind....That life isn't fair and that my nature limits my reality just as much as the world does. And so I can escape into my dream world where I have absolutely 0 control or I can fantasize as I stand staring over a desk and just imagine people's stories and make up silly stories of what could happen in everyday situations and then just end up back at home at the end of the day with that sinking, crushing, very odd feeling that I did this to myself.
So, I dream and I wake up. And all the gains in my little fantasy world are gone, leaving me with that odd feeling of having lost something. But when I lose in real life, there's a gaping hole, a ragged cut, or a mental bruise that seems to stick with me, shadowing me like a determined ghoul. The difference is knowing you lost something as opposed to thinking you may have...
So, Mr. Elmer Rice- I know I should understand that the point is to love and lose than to never love at all. And to put yourself out there so you can grow and not just escape and stagnate in a dream world. And I agree with you....
Because once I won, I won big. I changed, matured, grew. Sometimes I wish it was a dream, and the scars of that time would fade away just as sleep does. Sometimes I trace the scars and just indulge in memory.
Scars has such a nasty connotation but think of them more like symbols of adulthood. Many cultures mark significant rituals by scarring their members- a constant reminder of what they have achieved. Mine of course aren't skin deep but some people see them when they look me right in the eyes. I've never been good at hiding them.
So, I'll treat them like I treat the dog bite scar, the keyloid scar on my shoulder, or the acne scars. With a little bit of a pride, a little bit of embarrassment, and a whole lot of going forward. There's so many more things that can scar me in this lifetime both good and bad. So, maybe I have to get through these times to endure worse ones.
Or maybe to better appreciate the scars that I have.
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