Dreams

I am leery of the word dreams.

My dreams at night most often reflect my fears and insecurities: a random assortment of images and soundbytes that haunt me. If you’re in recovery, you might have had a drunk dream. And perhaps, like me, you’ve awoken to the remorse of a relapse without leaving the comfort of your bed: Do I tell my wife? Do I tell my friends? Those dreams and the state of mind they put me in take hours to shake.

If you’re an American, the word more often refers to Obama than Freud. As in, dreams are more synonymous with future ambition than night sweats. This is where I take issue with the word.

It has been a personal theme lately, writing my last post on calibrating emotions and doing an interview for Practical Recovery on my sober identity. Putting it mildly, I have found little use in dreaming of a bigger and brighter future. In truth, ambition has been psychologically crippling. Take it from me, the guy who once packed up his car and drove to Hollywood to reinvent himself. If you don’t know and love who you are, it doesn’t matter where you go or what you do. Misery awaits.

In my life, dreams have been realized in the opposite order: I have better understood myself first, and that has allowed the good things in my life that might be considered dreamy. I’m reminded of the Robert Burns poem: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” as I get the teaching year started. All of the best things in my life have happened to me, not the other way around. My best laid plans landed me in a psychiatric unit, alienated from family and friends, wanting to die. I’m not being hyperbolic here, certainly not braggadocios. My best laid plan when left to my own devices was to die. It was only when I let go of the reigns that I experienced the dream of living, that smooth and fluid path of least resistance.This experience is my personal proof that God lends a loving hand. I only need the willingness to grasp it.

This is why I prefer to say, “prayer works” than, “dreams come true.”

In my experience, these sentiments mean the same thing.

All this is to preface that this was my family’s dream summer.

We took a leap of faith and fostered a child from Colombia. I wrote three posts about him and the enriching experience it was for my family to take in a stranger and love him like family. While we were not ready to adopt, we found someone who was. Diego will be a US citizen as early as March of next year.

What’s more, while Diego was with us, we stumbled upon our dream home, quite literally. I walked by as the seller washed his steps. The house had a “coming soon” sign and six weeks later we were moving into it.

How fast the summer went. And on the surface of things, for a blog post called Dreams, it would be easy to tout our luck and fortune, finding a new home for an orphan and a new home for ourselves in a matter of months. But this dream, the one I am living, is not mine. It has been given to me by others, role models, spiritual advisors, trusting employers, a loving wife.

And what the word dreams does not capture, most tragically, is the work it takes to make them float on. We drove Diego across three states continually, meeting as many interested families as we could, dragging our own exhausted children with us. The language barrier grew tiresome. And while I’m grateful to have become conversational in Spanish, I entered my teaching year on empty.

What’s more, our dream home comes with the care and maintenance of a 115-year-old home. The home is exquisite mind you, but owning it requires a lifetime of work.

For now, living the dream means that I am too busy to be on social media, something that brings me happiness and fulfilment as I interact with the sober-verse, family and friends. All that is on pause. For now, living the dream means I do not write the way I’ve always felt I have to. The only writing I am doing until further notice is for you, my dear readers of this blog. For now, living the dream means that I’m not reading. That may be the largest void of them all. There is so much to do with all of our new school years in our new home that it feels like I don’t have the time to charge my phone, let alone use it. And this. This is the summer of my dreams?

Well, yes. But the dream is no fluffy fairy tale. It is a gritty reality that surfaces from elbow grease and faith.

The idea to write this post came to me when my wife and I were sitting in our old house, then completely empty from the move.

I could tell she was anxious, so I asked her why.

She said, “It’s just that in this house I know every scratch and imperfection. And I love it.”

“You’ll come to love our new home’s imperfections in time,” I said.

“But it’s the not knowing that gets me. I have no idea what makes the new house quirky or difficult.” Then she added, “It’s terrifying.”

That might be the best description of dreams I’ve ever heard. It’s not easy to let go of your plans and do the things that frighten you. It’s terrifying. It’s exhausting. And while you’re in the middle of it, you can’t quite be sure if it’s going to work out.

While moving, I’ve been telling people that I keep pinching myself. Is this real? Are we really doing this? And the more I keep my head down and work everything through, the clearer the answer becomes: It is being done for you.

And I thank God for that.