Tasty Dreams

Last spring I attended a good friend’s college graduation in Iowa. Down there I met up with a mutual friend of ours, all three of us alumni of USD Lacrosse (and a few house parties too). Over the years I’d seen Rook (nicknamed so for his tendency to only move forward, back and side-to-side on the field) come in to his own, finding a passion in a field of study that was as fitting as it was unconventional. My other friend, VB (short for Vicious Bitch… maybe I should have just used his name…), had also come into his own. After a number of years of applying and being turned down he had finally gotten into medical school and was just finished with his first year.

It was a surreal sight, seeing those two. The guys I remembered in college were long gone, replaced with men of quiet focus. The exuberance and aimlessness of youth had been replaced with the temperance of responsibility. They were soft-spoken and clean-cut. They wore suits. While they were still the same friends I’d always had, they were so obviously different it was somewhat shocking to me.

The ceremony itself was about like one would expect. Professors blathered and the class valedictorian gave his qualifications for medical school (he definitely wasn’t going into public speaking). As the graduates crossed the dais for their diplomas, announcers read their plans for the future. After the ceremony I told VB that it was good that the graduates wanted to share their dreams with the world, “Because there’s nothing the world loves more than really tasty dreams.” He laughed, and so did I.

In the year since my visit to Iowa for my friend’s graduation, Rook has since taken up a full-time job at a bike shop (bicycle bikes, not motorcycle bikes). His plans for graduate school in counter-terrorism are on hiatus and I get the impression that he’s a little bit jaded on the whole dreams thing. I know the feeling. I mean, I finished college. I even use my degree.

It works great for leveling my desk. Just the right thickness, under the rear left leg.

If I strike you as somewhat disenchanted it’s probably because I am. Most times I look back on who I was early in my college years I see a stranger. I was young (like you are), optimistic (like you tend to be) and had such high goals for myself (like you do).But somewhere along the lines real life reared its ugly head. 

Pictured: Real Life.

Any dreams I might have had took a back seat to the stuff that was on the backburner that was well-behind the stuff on the front burner. Now it’s been so long I’m not sure what my dream might be if I had one.

And I have a suspicion that if any of you stopped and thought about it, you would probably feel the same way. We’ve most of us put our dreams on hold for “real life”. A necessary sacrifice, we reason to ourselves. People need us to be responsible, not out chasing our dreams of being a professional wrestler.

We all reason with ourselves about it, yes. But when you do admit that you’ve given up the dream, there’s a moment of sad finality to it. You feel cheated. Not like life has cheated you, but like you’ve cheated yourself. You may have made a good life for yourself, but you haven’t done anything. You’ve stopped trying to be the best, or even be better, and instead have settled for “good enough”.

Don’t jump yet, kids.

Because there’s another side to this half empty glass I’ve painted for you. It may not be what you want to hear, and it probably will only grant you a brief solace from the miasma I’ve led you into. But it’s better than nothing, so take it as you will.

Maybe, just maybe, we’re all doing what we’re meant to be doing. Maybe “The Dream” is really just this: to live your life to the best of your ability, to be the best person you can be, to do right by your friends and family and to leave a good name behind when you go. Sure it’s not working in counter-terrorism. But it’s a good life. That has to count for something.

Or… you know… you could get off your lazy ass and chase that dream...

Never give up the dream, Murphy!