Where Are They?

Sometimes I wonder about dreams. Not the kind you dream at night after too much ice cream, but the sort that sit under lock and key somewhere on the deep inside, waiting to either be released or locked away deeper.

And it's not so much the dreams that I am aware of that cause me to stay up late at night and ponder. It's the ones that are so far hidden that I don't even know them, maybe wouldn't even recognize them if they showed up on my doorstep.

Because what if they show up, finally, but I don't know that they're mine? What if I cast them aside because I think they are someone else's dreams stowing away on board the ship that sails through the choppy waters of my life?

("That's poetic. That's pathethic.")

I think the reason I am thinking these things is that I am possibly on the verge of change again, though of course nothing is certain. (And let's not forget that I'm currently listening to an 80s song that includes the line, "I was living for a dream...loving for a moment.")

And it causes me to stop and ask the question: What are my dreams? Which ones are actually mine and not someone else's dreams that I have taken upon myself? If I were to take a step outside my present circumstances--the late homework nights, the long work hours that are fulfilling and yet never seem to really accomplish anything that I can stop and celebrate, the lack of a respectable social life because I make choices that cause it to be so--what would I find? Would my dreams be sitting there on my doorstep, waiting? Wondering where I was heading and why I was so convincedly determined to avoid them? Or would they say, "See, you're on the right track. We're right here, and even though you don't see it, you're actually getting closer and closer to us."

You could draw spiritual parallels to this as well, but I'm not in that mood tonight. (I'll save it for my kavanah post that will eventually make it on here.)

When I was younger, I thought this was supposed to happen in midlife. Then, a few years ago, I learned that it could occur at quarterlife. And didn't, for me. So what is this: third life? (Not as cool as SecondLife, apparently.)

And all I want to know is: Are my dreams still out there?