Four times this week I sat to tackle this topic and four times I scrapped my efforts. Today I began again. Five hundred words in, I realised I was off on a tangent, a different subject altogether. I have held on to it and perhaps it might appear another day, when the time is right.
I have realised something. I am not and never was a dreamer.
Life happened.
It happened fast and furiously when I was young and it was a case of doing what was needed then and there. No time for questions or hysterics, no such thing as “I don’t want to”, or “I don’t know how”.
It didn’t matter whether it was an epileptic fit, a heart attack, a dying father or a split lip. I dealt with all of it.
Dreaming was for people with time on their hands, those who could spend half a day with their nose in a book. Books might fill heads with other worlds and dreams but they didn’t do the washing or the cooking. I did that.
Don’t get me wrong, none of these things did me any harm, they taught me how to care, have compassion and not to sweat the small stuff. I am one of life’s listeners, and boy are there plenty of people out there with broken dreams.
Give me real life any day.
The topic My Dreams, and How I’ve Fulfilled Them was chosen by the lady of dreams Maria the Silver Fox. I wonder what dreams she will have to share with us today? Then while you are sitting, let your fingers do the clicking and move along to visit the other active members for some more dreaming: Maxi, Maria/Gaelikaa, Maria SilverFox, Padmum, Paul, Ramana, Shackman speaks, The Old Fossil, Will Knott.
Yeah, reality vs. dreams. I think about that all the time. Have a nice weekend, GM!
I am with you all the way. I think that all the stuff about dream your life and live your dream is just hogwash. Life happens. If we let it, we grow old with less hassles and grief.
A life lived beats a life dreamed any day GM. Kudos to you.
LOL I started with a long reponse of three paragraphs because I think we interpret what a dream is differently. I just decided to drop the semantics, because with your take, you are exactly right. The priority however you see it is to live life to the hilt as it happens!
I am kind of a dreamer, but truly, it mostly kept me company and entertained while I was doing what I needed to do. As I’ve aged and looked back I’ve realized I was doing what I wanted all the time, the little house, the kids, the grandkids, cooking, painting, a garden, a good job. If I had the chance to do it again, the changes would not be significant.
Gigi – I’m on the reality side.
Ramana – Life happens and I am always open to opportunity. alas, opportunity is not always open to me these days. 😉
shackman – It is the only way I know how to live life.
Everyone’s take on things is different. Some people don’t have time for dreams it’s true. But I do need to take time out to do my own stuff. Otherwise, I’d go crazy. I can’t live for scrubbing the place from top to bottom. A few hours housework a day for me and that’s it.
Fossie – I live life in the moment and give it my all.
Celia – A husband and marriage never figured in my thoughts or plans until the day I met Jack, it was then I realised he was the piece in the jigsaw of my life, that I had not realised was missing.
Maria – I don’t spend all day scrubbing and cleaning. Nowadays housework is not half the work it was 50 years ago. I use my hobbies and crafts as a carrot to spur me on through the necessary chores. It is amazing how much you can do in an hour, when you know you have some fun planned at the end of it.
As John Lennon told his son, “Life is what happens when you make other plans.”
Dreaming did not come naturally to me.
I think I was 40 when I actually began to plan my retirement. And that because my ‘new at the time’ husband asked me if I had thought about it.
Interesting post this, GM, you are more on the practical side of life, let’s get on with it. I am more on the impractical, my head often in another universe as the world dashes around me, doing. I am more in the being. Anyway I could go on and on and on.
I am so delighted I fulfilled a lot of my dreams. Maybe all of them. Well nearly. Without dreams I would die.
XO
WWW
It beats me how ‘real life’ and ‘dreaming’ are mutually exclusive. In fact they are partners in crime.
I wish Old Foss had expanded on the fact that ‘dreaming’ means different things to different people as seen reading the various contributions today. As to my type of dreaming (when you just let your mind drift) please don’t tell me, Grannymar, that when a little girl you never sat in a field and wove a daisy chain absorbed in your own world, that you never looked at a cloud and let your imagination take flight. I have yet to meet the person who doesn’t dream.
By the way, Maria (gaelikaa), never resent housework. Do wear rubber gloves and give everyone the impression you are not to be disturbed in the pursuit of cleanliness. Your thoughts, your imagination, your dreams allowed to carry you away whilst your hands are usefully occupied.
U
I began life as a daydreamer, but I soon learned it got me no where. Nowadays, day dreams are for remembering my past, whether good or bad.
It may have taken a while Gran, but your post is an inspiration. It seems you are a “take the bull by the horn” kinda person. Your life lessons taught you not to sweat the small stuff. Thanks for the reminder … I needed that.
Blessings ~ Maxi
Dianne – John Lennon was right. At least in my case he was.
WWW – Martha & Mary, that is the pair of us!
Ursula – I am not and never was a dreamer. The doing was much more interesting. We had an enclosed field at the end of our very long back garden. Fourteen houses bordered it and it was for the sole use of the children from those houses to play in. We trekked through the jungle (long grass round the edges & in the ditches), climbed trees and swung like Tarzan from the branches, and walked along high walls one brick thick, just like we were on a tightrope. These were all games, not dreams. A central grass area was for rounders, hurling and football and occasionally skipping with a very long rope. On long summer evenings many of the parents leaned against or sat on the wall to watch the fun, some reliving their childhoods by joining in. It all happened in the real world.
Judy – Many of the ‘Dreamers’ that I came across spent so much time in their own heads or stuck in books, that they never learned how to relate with other people. They may well be educated and have multiple degrees, but what good is that, if you cannot share your knowledge with others?
Maxi – I have come across a few who worry almost to the stage of a heart attack over some trifling matter that never actually happened. What a waste of time and energy.
So many very good comments, G’mar. You certainly know how to get at a subject. I think I’m both a dreamer and a doer, and at a surprising rich period of life where I can actually be both. For me, it’s important not to ignore the dreamer, but when push comes to shove I’m able to do what needs to be done. For someone considering themselves not a dreamer, you certainly are creative. After all, isn’t that a sort of dreamscape, that is escaping reality just a little?
Alice – I never considered my craft work as a form of escaping reality. It was more a translation of an idea to a surface or in 3D. For me it is similar to how I prepare a meal : Gather ingredients, prepare, combine and cook, then hope the blend is tasty.
Thought provoking post. I think I’m a realtime dreamer. Getting done what needs to be done, but always looking beyond the task at hand…
I’ve had plenty of dreams but not many of them have made it into reality. Fortunately the reality has turned out to be just as enjoyable as the dreams would have been. So I’ve been able to let go of the dreams quite happily.
Brighid – I called that planning.
Nick – Real like can be wonderful…. if we allow it.
Real life happens whether or not you dream. But I do think dreaming makes the journey happier. 🙂
Hmm… interesting. Ouch. That fence is sticking up and prodding me somewhere uncomfortable – because I’m sitting on it. I don’t see dreaming and doing as mutually incompatible – though I’ve met a lot of big talkers who never quite get round to the doing side of things.
Delores – Sounds like I missed the dream gene,so. Never mind I am happy in my skin and content with my lot.
BWT – The world is full of the empty vessels making plenty of noise.
Grannymar–all I wanted to do was to be left in peace to read books. I still want this but it rarely happens. Even when I sit with my prayer chanting books inevitably the husband has a question to ask.
Like you, life just took its own course….but I dream.
Padmini – Life certainly took its own course, like a fast flowing river.