When we’re babies, our parents have dreams of grandeur of what we will become. The doctor, the scientist, the celebrity.
When we’re kids, every adult we encounter asks us what we want to be when we grow up. And we answer them with conviction. A cowboy, a ballerina, an alien.
When we’re teens, our teachers prepare us for the future, to figure out which piece of expensive paper will pave the path to a fruitful career. Teach and be poor or business and be rich? Choose wisely.
When we’re adults – thrown into the world of bills, loans, and other hyped up seriousness – our dreams tend to fade. Usually, they disappear altogether.
Yet, sometimes they are revived. Quite suddenly you’re doing the things you loved most when you were a kid…coming full circle. You play music, you paint, you write.
You’re not the suit, you’re not the boss, you’re not the mom, you’re not the bachelor, you’re not the assistant, you’re not the alcoholic, you’re not the divorcee, you’re not the nobody.
You’re just you. And, you’re effing happy about it.
If you’re one of these dream-chasing adults, you’re often out of place. Everyone’s playing make-believe, the adults on one side and the children on the other.
Playing adult is allowed, respectable even.
Playing child isn’t. As a matter of fact, you’re the troublemaker.
I’ve done the day job thing most of my life. Hell, I’m doing it now…Monday-Friday, 9-5.
I play dress up every day just so I can play the board game. Buy, sell, trade. I was never any good at Monopoly. I liked ridiculously colorful games like Twister and Candyland.
For me, playing with the grown ups is just a game of pretend.
I will always be the rumpled employee who gets ready for work in five minutes flat, the grown ass woman sleeping with a stuffed animal, the hopeless case daring to dream because she can’t live any other way.
And, I don’t know why it’s so strange and unusual. I mean…what’s wrong with having dreams, anyway?
Britt Skrabanek 