Tucked Away

I have a dream.

That is not a reference to a strong historical figure, but an acknowledgment that I have only recently been willing to make.

I have a dream. I have a goal.

That's really remarkably hard for me to say. An avowed perfectionist, declaring something to be a "dream" or a "goal" sets the bar pretty high. Saying that I dream of accomplishing something seems to be setting a standard for myself that, if not attained, indicates failure. And failure, to this perfectionist, is kryptonite.

I cannot stand the thought of failing. I cannot bear the realization that I worked for something, failed, and - worse - everyone knows it. It is hard enough to stand under the weight of my own scrutiny; that of others is stifling, even if it is only imagined.

Admitting that I dream of something - strive toward something - makes it real. It defines me in a way that would be good if I were more of an optimist. I could be defined by what I work toward and will, one day, accomplish. However, as a perfectionistic pessimist, I must face the reality that being defined by what I work toward opens the possibility that I could eventually be defined not by my success, but by that which I wanted so desperately but fell short of. That is unbearable.

I have recently thought, though, that our dreams define us only as long as we let them do so. It is the things we do to drive ourselves toward those dreams that forms who we are; we can be as big a fanatic over our dreams as we wish. The hard thing for me has been that for a long time, I had no dreams to speak of. Any concept of a "dream" I had in mind was so nebulous that I couldn't begin to describe it, but usually, I was blissfully unaware that it even existed. In college, I picked my major because it sounded interesting on the day of registration that forced me to declare a major, and while all of my friends and roommates had at least some concept of what they wanted to do with their lives, I couldn't say much. The ideas I had for my future were vague and generic, and when I told anyone what I wanted to do with my life, more often than not it was something that I thought sounded good.....not something that I was actually interested in or could envision myself doing.

As it turns out, life is a better educator than the classroom, and I've learned a lot more about myself in the 4 years since I graduated than I did in the 17 years that preceded. I know who I am, what I want (and equally important, what I don't want), and I know what my dreams are. They are concrete. They are mine, and they within reach.

And I'm glad to say that yes, they do exist. I have dreams.