Category Archives: Childhood Memories/Terrors

Dream the impossible dream? I can’t even dream a possible one.

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The first question in all these self-help books I’ve been reading is, “What’s your dream life?”  My dream life?   I can have a dream?  They may as well be asking me what time I want to leave for a trip to the moon.  It’s impossible.

Growing up in a poor household with a ton of hungry kids, I learned early that dreams were for schmucks.  My parents’ mantra was, “No sense in even trying because [fill in the blank] will never work anyway.”

When I was in junior high, I came up with the brilliant idea to audition for the cheerleader squad. This was back in the day where the student body voted, so it was basically a popularity contest.  Everyone already knew who the cheerleaders were going to be, but some small Dream Spark inside me determined I should give the impossible a try.  Since I’d successfully been a wallflower for the first fourteen years of my life, I did not make the squad and I cried my eyes out.

The next year when it was time to tryout, and with my Dream Spark barely an ember, I signed up  again.  As I jumped around our yard attempting to get my distinctly uncoordinated body to remain upright, Mom came outside.  Twisting a worn out dishcloth between her hands, she lowered herself onto a rusted swing.   “Please don’t try out again,” she whimpered.  “I can’t handle the rejection.”  Whereupon she buried her face in the towel and cried her eyes out.

That flood of tears extinguished my Dream Ember and I’ve never dreamed an impossible dream again, let alone a possible one.

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But now these damn self-help books keep throwing matches at my Dream Ember to try to revive it.  I read a quote in one that said, “Create a vision that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning.”  What? The?  That’s a made up thing, right?  Like princes on white horses, and dragons and unicorns?

I took the book to my therapist appointment and, stabbing my finger at the quote, demanded she confirm that it was a fairy tale.  She looked at me like I had two heads (something, I’m pretty sure they are taught in therapist’s school not to do) and said, “I jump out of bed every morning!”

I walked out of that appointment a muddled mess.  When I got to my car I paused to look around and wondered, Wait.  Are all these people walking around magically thinking up dreams, and goals, and aspirations too?

I’m available Wednesday for a trip to the moon.  Anyone want to come along?

 

Bailing Twine and Bubble Gum

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Dad proudly announced at every opportunity, “Everything on this farm is held together with baling twine and bubble gum.”  I’m not sure if its a trait of all farmers or just Dad but he was a “good enough” kind of guy and that’s the way I learned things.

Getting the broken item fixed quickly (before Mom’s temper exploded) was Goal One. There wasn’t a second goal.  After the fix, any tool he used was left where it lay or if he was outside, tossed through the door of the ramshackle shed.

It came as a great shock to me when I moved in with Husband and he pointed out that the job was not complete until everything was put back where it came from.  Fast forward twenty years and although I’m not as meticulous as Husband, I’ve come to expect a certain standard of repair and order.

Yesterday I went to the hardware store to buy a five-foot closet rod.  When the salesclerk was unable to find what I wanted, he said, “Well…this will probably work.”  It was a hundred degrees outside and I really, really did not want to go to the big box store so I picked up the “good enough” and headed to the cash register.

A picture of my childhood bedroom flashed before my eyes.  Closet with no door, an unfinished plywood floor and  a rod that collapsed if more than three hanging items were attempted.

I did an about-face and returned the good-enough item and, after wandering the store for twenty minutes, found the exact thing I needed.

I could finish by saying Dad would be proud of me – but that would not true.  He’d be prouder to have walked into my closet and seen a pair of old shoes attached to the wall with twelve rusty nails supporting the handle of an old broom.