Where Do You Keep Your Dreams?

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You know.

The ones that won’t leave you alone, like a nagging dirty-faced little kid tugging at your pant leg.

The ones that sit in the seat of your throat; that little hollow part where it meets the rest of your heavy, clumsy body.

The body that’s been putting them off, busy doing other things.

Important things.

Things that don’t matter.

At all.

Maybe they’re the dreams that you can’t stop thinking about, for days, weeks…decades. The kind of dreams that keep you getting out of bed in the morning, delusionally believing that you’ll get there one day.

Even though your habits never change, day-in-and-day-out, and you’re busy watching tv just waiting for them to come to you, knock on your door and ask for a cup of tea.

If you’re anything like me – and if you’re here, I have a terrifying feeling that you might be – you’ll understand the feeling that you’re somehow running out of room to keep them all.

The attic is full.
The basement is a crime scene.
The closets…well, don’t even get me started on the closets.

And all those skeletons.

It’s exhausting, dragging them everywhere with you, as though you’ve put on 200 pounds of extra baggage, tucked in every crevice of your being because you’re too afraid of losing them.

Or worse, forgetting about them.

But for some reason, they’re important.

If only to you.

The term ‘important’ is a tough one; so relative, so subjective. But the essence of the word is:

im·por·tant

/imˈpôrt(ə)nt/
adjective

1. of great significance or value; likely to have a Profound effect on success, survival,
   or well-being.

And there we go.

Dreams are important. So in turn, they’re likely to have a profound effect on our well-being (we may or may not get into what it means to have a profound effect later, or maybe we won’t. But, what we don’t do is usually even more profound than what we actually do.

What we don’t do tells us more about ourselves than we can ever be told or taught, and if we pause long enough to take an inventory of those traffic jams in our life, we’ll learn more than we’ll honestly ever want to know.

Because we already know what they’re going to tell us.

So why am I over here just talking about them and putting on the kettle everyday and saving them a seat at my table, when I didn’t even give them my address?

Oh right, I’m too busy tripping over all of them that I have hidden everywhere I look; in everything I do – and don’t do – and frankly, they’re starting to get in the way – the skeletons are stacked to the ceiling and the doors are shut tight for fear they’ll all tumble out.

Plus, they all still live here.

Up until now, I’ve always struggled with dissecting my dreams (and just so we’re all on the same page and talking about the same thing, I’m not talking about those bizarre and unexplainable storylines that visit you while you’re thankfully unconscious, like strung-out little messengers that speak an entirely foreign language. I’m talking about our aspirations, our goals, our Big Dreams. Our Important Dreams. With capitals.)

Where was I? Right.

I’ve always struggled with dissecting my Dreams (see? capitals) into manageable little bits that are more easily swallowed, more easily digested (and processed – but I’m not a biologist, or whoever it is that specializes in digestion. A Grastitician? Stomachetitist? Anyways.) …into manageable, digestible morsels that taste better than devouring the whole plate at once.

Food tastes better when you eat it slowly.

And Dreams are no different.

But, the first step is dragging them up from the basement, one at a time – in your own time – and staring them in the eye, asking them why and how they’re here. (Plot hole: skeletons don’t have eyes.) Learn their language, understand why we’ve kept them tucked away so long, and ask yourself why you’ve been dragging them (and yourself) around for a tour of your everyday nonsense, until you’re finally ready to maybe take a stab at possibly failing.

Trying though?

Trying is a much better feeling than never trying.

Trying, with a capital, is Important.

So, Try.

Try, for maybe the first time in your life – or at least recently.

Try, because it’s far more glorious to be failing at it than letting it drag you down, day-in and day-out.

Try, because it’s Important.

Try, honestly – simply Try because you know that you’re lying to yourself if you said you didn’t want to.

Try, because you know what?

Maybe you’ll succeed.

Maybe you’ll thrive.

Maybe the entire chaotic trajectory of your life will change, suddenly fuelled by a sense of purpose, a sense of accomplishment – a sense of simply put – I did it.

I Tried, and I Did It.

So here’s hoping, for a change, I can do better at taking my own advice.

Write the book.

Take the course. Go the gym. Put down the drink. Stop the negative self-talk. Go to Tibet and climb a mountain. Go deep sea diving in the Galápagos Islands (they’ll be, and almost are, exctinct, so you should probably get on that – though our human interaction is honestly the actual problem). Do the scary things. Make the phone call. Put yourself out there. Dress better – so you’ll feel better. Shower in the morning. Make the bed. Buy the thing (but don’t, in case shopping is your addiction).

Lean in, just a little bit.

Possibly the scariest yet – have the conversation.

The one that you know is sitting there in that hollow of your throat, waiting to be released into the heart of the person you’ve been holding it for. No matter how possibly uncomfortable it may be; honesty and release is far healthier than poisoning yourself by keeping it in.

Just try.

Stop keeping your Dreams in storage. Clear out the attic. Disassemble the skeltons into manageable bones you can study and put back together correctly, just how they were supposed to be when they were, once upon a day, a Real Boy (have I mentioned that I’m slightly obsessed with the real meaning and story behind Pinocchio? Stay tuned for a post on this, soon.)

And that is all.

I promise, to you, and more importantly, to myself, to Try.

I promise to stop keeping my Dreams to myself.

I promise that I will, but you have to promise, too.

Deal?

Also – eat slowly.

Photo banner © Jenna Martin.