A Small Confession

I am afraid of dreaming. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean the physical act (or “inact”) of lying down at night and being submersed into a listless stream of images, prophesy, and superpowers. No, not that at all. I look forward to those kinds of dreams—even if I rarely remember them. I am afraid of hoping into the scope of dreaming because if you never expect anything, you can’t be disappointed, right?
Amongst one of my more diverse group of friends at school, I am the self titled Pessimist. The other two girls, The Dreamer and the Realizer, are better than that. The Dreamer has traveled to places that most people only mark down on their bucket list, yet never check off. She has had a taste of life outside of this seafood obsessed place. She has been to places where people speak languages other than ‘hon’, and their harbors are more blue than green. She is looking to the future because she has already had a glimpse of it, and while, high school may seem tedious, it is the knowing, I think, that gets her through the week. She knows that there is an entire world, rich with culture, beyond these city limits. She has big plans to travel more and to see more. It’s just a matter of getting out of school with grades that are going to make the cut. My other friend, The Realizer, has also traveled a bit. She is just coming into the realization that childhood ends, and with experience knowledge accumulates. She is hardworking and determined to do well because she sees the pattern of cause and effect, where doing well in school equals opportunity later in life.

Then there is me. I do well in school so that someday I can get out of here and hopefully it won’t cost my parents a ton of money. I survive the school weeks not so that someday I can become great, but to someday live far far away and experience what I can. I want to have a successful career, and I want to be more than just mediocre, I want to help people, but I am afraid. I know that few actually leave the 20 mile radius from the house they grew up in. The once aspiring doctors, lawyers, and actors can now be found wearing “How May I help you” badges at their local Wal-mart constantly repeating a mantra of “I have six kids to feed at home” or “This is only temporary.”

But then again I think about what would happen if I let my fear become a disability and I simply gave up before I’d even begun? Though my resolve isn’t something I said, good ‘ol Theodore had it right, “’It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” Those words bring things back into perspective for me. Hope has become more of a reward than a danger.  Not that I’m not still afraid. But now that I know that let down is inevitable, the hurt is at least deserved instead of cowardly avoided.
Thanks Teddy.