Did you have dreams when you were little? Remember when you could do and be anything you wanted to? Or, at least believing that way? What happened?
Did you want to be an astronaut, a circus bareback rider, a super hero or a ballerina? And did your body not live up to your expectations and you found yourself too tall, to round or even worse?
Or, were there people around you who told you you couldn’t be what you dreamed of being? People who had other plans for your life and, because you wanted to please them, you parked the dreams somewhere and forgot where you left them? Well, unlike forgetting where you parked your car at a shopping center, once you lose track of where you left your dreams, it’s very easy to leave them lost and move on.
But that’s not okay with me because I believe dreams are given to us to be experienced, to be lovingly lived. There are times that the dreams we had as children cannot be once we move into what is laughingly called adulthood, but they don’t have to be allowed to disappear entirely.
Say for example, you wanted to be a ballerina. That particular career requires a lithe, disciplined, athletic body. You don’t have one of those. You’re now too tall, too round, too creaky and no way flexible enough to be one, so how can you possibly live your dream?
Well, there’s a song by Melanie Safka, Ballerina” that keeps going through my mind and was part of the impetus for writing this. The chorus line is:
“You didn’t grow up to be a ballerina, but you do a mean song and dance.”
There’s a world of meaning in that line. It says maybe you can’t live your dream in the exact form it was in when you were a child, but when you own the dream and you make it entirely your own, you can live it as you are for all you’re worth!
What was it about being a ballerina that made you want to be one? How can you get back in touch with what it felt like to want that as a life? How can you get back in touch with that starstruck child full of wonder and sparkle who wanted nothing more than to dance her story? You find another expression of that passion. Once you can break down the attraction and the attributes that had your little heart going pitty-pat, go for those things now.
* Get tickets to the ballet and love every minute of the show.
* Fill your space with music that makes you want to dance.
* Find a way to dance a little every day, no matter what style, just move and enjoy the movement.
* Get yourself a pair of ballet shoes and hang them where you’ll see them to remind you not to park your dreams any more.
If a ballerina wasn’t your thing, find comparable ways to get back in touch with the part of that dream that had you breathless with excitement and expectation.
And think about this while you’re at it:
It wasn’t the dream that went away, it was your passion for it and your belief in its possibility. You didn’t give up on the dream, you gave up on your invulnerability and your belief that you could do anything you wanted.
I’m here to tell you that you are still invulnerable, you can still do whatever it is you want to do. No matter what that may be.