The Dream is Alive!

As a stay-at-home parent, few things match the unbridled joy of the beginning of the new school year.  I am now in a particularly sweet spot because my little one just started kindergarten, and so I have two children at the same school.  There is nothing like dumping the kids off at school and letting yourself simmer in the juices of freedom.  Let me tell you, suffering stay-at-home mommies and daddies, this promiseland is real.  Right now, I have the luxury of sitting down and enjoying a full mug of coffee – no questions to answer, no fights to interrupt, no snotty noses to wipe!  School is awesome!

But it’s not only about me and my freedom.  While I stitch together the scraps of my skills-based resume, my kids are (presumably) learning and their futures are being fed. They can still be whatever they want to be when they grow up.  The Dream is Alive!  (for them!)

As for me? I’m not so sure.  Lately I’ve been dwelling upon my own dreams  And as a practicing Virgo, I recognize this soul-searching as my old friend, my Annual Mid-Life Crisis ^TM, now in its eleventh consecutive year. This is not depression but simply planned annual self-improvement.  I am a very positive person.  (My blood type is my motto: B Positive.)  

But seriously folks, who shut down my dream machine?

I was a pretty darn good runner in high school. Westfield State even considered me for a Track scholarship.  I dreamed of competing in the Olympics, and I even ran imaginary races against the best runners in the world.  I never did get to the Olympics.  Not even close.  At this point, my only real hope is Olympic Curling.  And that is just sad.

I didn’t think I could feel bad about failing to reach goals that I didn’t even have.  But I learned that you can.  A good friend of mine recently won an Emmy. He deserves every bit of his success.  I jumped up and down and cried with happiness when he won.  The next day, my mother mentioned that she too would cry if I won an Emmy (like my friend’s mom actually did).  I took it personally. I had to tell her that it is highly unlikely that I will win an Emmy.  She understood, but now I have dashed my mom’s dream of being a parent of an Emmy winner. 

My dream of being a doctor went splat in the 10^th grade.  We were testing our blood types in Miss Brown’s biology class.  I fainted at the sight of my own blood and woke up in the nurses office.  (The takeaway? Miss Brown later told me “B positive.”)

For a brief time as a child, I wanted to be an architect, mostly because I like using rulers and protractors, and wearing plaid.  I even had a plaid lunch box.  That was as close as I got to being an architect.

I also wanted to be President of the United States.  The Presidency has always fascinated me.  As a kid, I would spend hours reading their biographies and memorizing facts.  I do want to make this world a better place, and I’m a huge fan of both fireside chats and cardigan sweaters.  But who am I kidding? This is an absolutely unreachable goal.  And I know I couldn’t survive the criticism.  My wife made an off-hand remark about my watermelon cutting technique and it put me in a funk for the rest of the evening. 

I haven’t been entirely a failure (I think I’ve been a good dad), and thank goodness for the wonderful and rewarding years I had at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.  Strangely, as much as I like space, and math and science,  I never actually dreamed of working in space exploration, it just happened as I followed my interests.  Similarly, I never thought about being an astronaut, because I know too well the dangers of rocket propulsion and the inherent risks of space flight.  Sure, there was always the fantasy of zero-gravity sex, but the lure was not enough to overcome my fear of being strapped to a launch vehicle.  Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I still prefer to control when and how I explode.

I guess that’s the beauty of childhood: it is a time for dreaming.  Growing up sucks. Letting go of dreams, as crazy as they may be, sucks.  The good news is, now with the  kids back in school, I have time to dream again.  And I even have room for some crazy dreams.  After all, I think I should be positive – it’s in my blood.