Dream Stealers
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
We went to a circus last night. Whenever we go to a circus and it gets to the part where the girls are flying through the air, muscling and bending their way up a rope and spinning around...I think...that looks like so much fun. I could totally do that.
On the drive home my husband even said, "You could do that."
Yeah, I could do that. And I've always wanted to do stuff like that. You can't keep me off the monkey bars when we go to the park. Only recently I've found the ability to resist climbing on the divider bars in fast-food lines. I look at trapeze artists and think, "I wish that was me up there." I watch gymnastics and ice dancing on television and my soul yearns to be doing it too. I learned a back-handspring when I was 18. I learned how to do a flip just a few months ago.
At 19 I would haunt gymnastic halls, hoping to get a chance to play on the equipment. I spent all day at the health club, went to almost every single aerobics class. (Looking back I really wonder how a person could have so much energy?) One of my instructors, a dancer for the Utah Jazz, suggested I audition for the squad.
The adult figures in my life questioned how I was spending my free time. They told me I was living in a dream. What's wrong with dreaming? Aren't great things achieved through dreams? And great memories made? We're only young once.
Although my imagination carried me to beautiful places, I looked around and I saw everyone waking up at 5am everyday to face a long commute to the jobs they hated. And that's what they wanted for me too. Gee, thanks guys. Perhaps they wished the same misery on me because they didn't get to enjoy their youths either.
I was forced to work crap jobs, then when that led me nowhere (long hours, low dead-end pay) I joined the army. At least then I could afford to go to college, another thing that the boring dreamstealers told me I had to do. The one thing my dreamstealers failed to tell me is that youth is fleeting. I think they wished my youth to fleet away, that I'd become hardened and grumpy and talentless like themselves.
Surely they knew better than I did what I should do with my life.
I regret that I ever listened to them.
But I am inspired by a 40-year-old gal (gosh, she's probably 45 now) who, in her off-time from the boring office job we worked together, taught strength training classes at a gym, danced with a dance company, did acrobatics onstage, and was in the process of opening her own dance studio. Her son played ice hockey and her daughter was a budding prima ballerina, in mommy's footsteps. She was a really nice gal. Understatement of the century. She was ultra-intelligent, down-to-earth, all that.
So yeah, being 30 with two children does not have to be the end. I don't see life in an office or a classroom, or even being stuck as primary slave to my children.
I see fresh air, endorphins, and eternal youth.
I can always dream.
On the drive home my husband even said, "You could do that."
Yeah, I could do that. And I've always wanted to do stuff like that. You can't keep me off the monkey bars when we go to the park. Only recently I've found the ability to resist climbing on the divider bars in fast-food lines. I look at trapeze artists and think, "I wish that was me up there." I watch gymnastics and ice dancing on television and my soul yearns to be doing it too. I learned a back-handspring when I was 18. I learned how to do a flip just a few months ago.
At 19 I would haunt gymnastic halls, hoping to get a chance to play on the equipment. I spent all day at the health club, went to almost every single aerobics class. (Looking back I really wonder how a person could have so much energy?) One of my instructors, a dancer for the Utah Jazz, suggested I audition for the squad.
The adult figures in my life questioned how I was spending my free time. They told me I was living in a dream. What's wrong with dreaming? Aren't great things achieved through dreams? And great memories made? We're only young once.
Although my imagination carried me to beautiful places, I looked around and I saw everyone waking up at 5am everyday to face a long commute to the jobs they hated. And that's what they wanted for me too. Gee, thanks guys. Perhaps they wished the same misery on me because they didn't get to enjoy their youths either.
I was forced to work crap jobs, then when that led me nowhere (long hours, low dead-end pay) I joined the army. At least then I could afford to go to college, another thing that the boring dreamstealers told me I had to do. The one thing my dreamstealers failed to tell me is that youth is fleeting. I think they wished my youth to fleet away, that I'd become hardened and grumpy and talentless like themselves.
Surely they knew better than I did what I should do with my life.
I regret that I ever listened to them.
But I am inspired by a 40-year-old gal (gosh, she's probably 45 now) who, in her off-time from the boring office job we worked together, taught strength training classes at a gym, danced with a dance company, did acrobatics onstage, and was in the process of opening her own dance studio. Her son played ice hockey and her daughter was a budding prima ballerina, in mommy's footsteps. She was a really nice gal. Understatement of the century. She was ultra-intelligent, down-to-earth, all that.
So yeah, being 30 with two children does not have to be the end. I don't see life in an office or a classroom, or even being stuck as primary slave to my children.
I see fresh air, endorphins, and eternal youth.
I can always dream.
