Altered Dreams

So here I am, out with my good friend. We’re sitting on a beautiful patio right in the heart of the city, sipping a refreshing sauvignon blanc and doing what we do best: analyzing our lives and even more particularity the non existence of a significant man in our lives. 

As the majority of our friends have settled down, married, are in serious relationships etc, I sit there and think ‘why are we any different? Did we subconsciously make this decision for ourselves?’ I think back to when when I was a child. I remember playing “wedding” with my sisters and friends, normally I would play the part of the groom or the minister, except of course the time I was 6 years old and was actually forced by my older sisters to married my beach buddy, Blaine. All of our parents and friends were there to celebrate with us. I wasn't opposed to this blessed union, but I also didn't give much thought to it. So, I suppose, I have never been afraid of marriage. But I cannot remember actually laying in bed and dreaming about how my wedding would look or what sort of dress I would wear. Does this mean I never cared enough to actually find a man with whom to create the dream? Does this mean that because I have never been able to visualize it that it will not come true? So I asked around to my friends, both married and not married, in relationships and single. My results were that the majority of them who had, in fact, dreamt of their weddings were now either married or in serious relationships. 

Hmmm, this is getting concerning. Did I doom myself at a young age to remain a spinster forever? Will I find fault in ever man who I come across just to stay true to my non-wedding dreams? Hold up! Lets take a step back for a minute. Lets say I had dreamt of weddings as a little girl. What would be the likelihood that I would now be married to my scrawny, inadequate high school boyfriend? Probably pretty high. If I had been on that fast track to marriage, the first one would have been locked and loaded. I would be living in a beat up old house in a small town in the middle of Who-Caresville on Going Nowhere Road. It would be comfortable and I would probably be content. Or would I? Instead, I chose not to fabricate wedding bell dreams and instead dreamed of the world and what it had to offer me. I focused on the people I would meet, the places I would see, and the incredible things I could do. Focus is an amazing thing. When your focus is set to a certain target, you will find that in no time at all you're hitting bulls eyes. The most important thing is that you are always aiming for something. If you find you are shooting with no focus you will end up hitting stray targets which you will probably regret. Generally, in these times without focus, life will veer off in the wrong direction and will spiral out of control before you can even realize it. 

So, here I sit, sipping my wine and talking about the same things we've talked about a million times. I know we will continue talking about these things a million more times, and I am more then ok with that.   And you know what?  I still don’t dream of wedding bells but I do have focus. I do have targets set up all around me. As long as I keep on aiming, I am bound to hit some of them sooner or later.