If you could...

As a kid, one of the most favored games we used to play was, as we called it, "make believe". You probably played this as a child although it may have had a different name and if you were the slightest bit like almost every child I've ever known you enjoyed it. For those of you who didn't play it, the basic premise of the game was to pretend - no other rules, no keeping score, just a way to wile away the time and have some fun. See, I told you that you played it too.

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I'm not really sure how or when I got started playing this or when I decided that I would like to pretend to be something or somebody I wasn't but I know that those times were lots of fun. I wasn't alone in liking this game, I only remember that whoever I was playing with at the time got as much enjoyment out of it as I did.

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A few posts back I wrote down some facts about myself and one of those facts has stuck with me although I know it very well; I guess it's one of those things I rarely think about but is always sitting on the back burner so to speak. I said "I still can't believe I do what I do as a profession. There are times when I can say I've enjoyed it but for the most part...I wish I had the guts to just walk away from it with no regard to having to earn a living; maybe I could do something else? If only I could figure out what." and this has sort of been gnawing at me. Not any more than usual but it has me contemplating the statement which I now see in print.

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In another of my posts I spoke about dreams. Not the kind you have at night during REM sleep, the kind of dreams that go hand in hand with hopes. I guess these dreams started way back, back as far as "make believe" when I was pretending to be someone or something I wasn't. When I wanted to feel what it was like to be more than I was. As a kid I had no idea that these pretensions might have been dreams and hopes but now that I pull it apart, look closer, I think they just may have been.

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Dreaming is not something that I consciously try to do; it just happens, and pretty often I must add. I had always thought that these dreams were good. They were a way of guiding me in the right direction hopefully leading me down a path that would eventually get me to where I wanted to be. Or so I thought. Now that I examine them, I don't think that even one of my dreams has ever materialized or realized itself. Have I been setting myself up for disappointment after disappointment over and over? Has the harsh reality of life shown me that whatever it is I dream about is simply fantasy and dreams are only for kids? Is it a means of escaping a hum-drum existence for awhile? Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it that's probably the case most times.

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I guess dreaming for and about things would be okay as long as you kept in mind that it's just play time and that the hopes you have will more than likely be dashed. Hell, it's probably easier to win the lottery than it is to have one of your dreams come true; a crap shoot, a huge gamble on nothing....so.....why bother.....right? That's what I at first thought after realizing that I was only kidding myself.

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Well, here's where the dreamer in me rears his head, like I said before, I can't help it, they just happen. Okay, I now know that a lot of what I'm hoping for will never happen, a lot of what I would like will never come to fruition, a lot of who I want to be will simply be determined by fate. But should that stop me from hoping? To a logical person the answer would of course be yes, you know, why waste the time. Don't we all have more valuable ways to use our thought processes? I guess I'm illogical because...well...I'm not going to even try to stop them when they arise. Without that little bit of hope it would sometimes be unbearable and this seems to be a way out! Definitely illogical but worth every moronic moment.

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Let me tell you, this has been a very enlightening post for me. I have discovered that I'm illogical, childlike in the respect that I still play "make believe", happy and satisfied with the knowledge that most of these dreams are probably an escape, although one never knows...and on top of it all...extremely happy that after all these years I still remember how to play!