All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. --Walt Disney
I have spent a lifetime dreaming. When I was five, I would dance around my house, a costume dress that was two sizes too big fitting loosely over my t-shirt and jeans, a crown on my brow and my head full of nonsense. I pretended that I was Mary Poppins, making magical things happen, or Aurora from Disney's Sleeping Beauty, enchanting, beautiful, and hopelessly in love. Some days, I would be a damsel in distress. Some days, I would be my own hero. But no matter what day it was, I was dreaming about rescue, and dreaming about love. I was a child then, but if those are the terms that define a child--dreaming of impossibly good fortune and romance--then I suppose that I am still a child today.
For me, dreaming was a necessary state of being; it was more than just a pastime, or something that I did when I fell asleep. I was always dreaming, because I was always having to imagine scenarios where I was not quite so alone. Now, no: this is not going to be a post about how sad and pathetic my life has been. Really, the biggest reason I was lonely as a kid was just for the simple fact that my siblings were all so much older than me; by the time I was able to play with dolls and weave drunken narrations of gaiety, my brothers were out skateboarding with their long-haired friends, and my sister was painting her nails in her room while listening to music that could be heard from the other end of the house. And perhaps lonely is not such an accurate adjective; I never felt my loneliness, or rather, I felt it very rarely. I was so wrapped up in my dreaming that everything else faded from my immediate notice. And really, that is the wonder of dreaming.
J. R. R. Tolkien, a man who knew more than most about dreams, said this: "One dream is better than a thousand realities." I take this to mean that no matter how good your reality may be, one simple dream can outclass it like a glass of chardonnay outclasses a Miller Lite. There is a mystery to dreaming, a something that makes it surreal and beautifully painful, a something that true life can never really attain. I have learned throughout the years that reality will always disappoint us. That first kiss might not send shivers up your spine; it might not do anything at all, except give you an overwhelming sense of heat and self-consciousness. That first dance might not hold all the magic you dreamed it would; it might be boring, your feet might be sore, any number of things. And that's the thing: disappointment is an effect of dreaming. We are constantly spinning around in this world, while even sillier things are spinning around in our minds. For instance, I have had this notion (probably induced by too much social media and one-too-many late-night romantic comedy marathons) that my first love would be unspeakably beautiful. I had never doubted that the love would be mutual, would be at first sight, and would last forever.
Yeah. So not.
But there are so many other things that disappoint us in life, besides unrequited love: family, friends, ourselves, our future, memories, plans, religion...The list goes ever on. The catch-22 is that we are disgruntled about our realities because we dreamed they would be different, and yet we still continue to dream, because dreams are so much better than reality.
At this point, I believe I'm rambling. But the point I am trying to make is this: dreams may set us up for failure, but they are so worth it. To take a page out of Disney's book (or rather, to take a scene from one of the corporation's more recent films), the story of Rapunzel as portrayed in Tangled is centered around dreaming. My favorite line is this: as Flynn Rider lays dying in Rapunzel's arms, he says, "You were my new dream." These two unlikely companions had embarked on a journey together, both seeking to realize their dreams, only to find that what they had been searching for all along had been each other. Now, of course, Flynn does not truly die. (Er, spoiler by the way.) It's a Disney movie, and there is no way in hell they are letting that happen. But in reality? He would have gone. He would have gone, and he would have never embraced the dream that he had. Fear held him back, like it holds so many of us back. It holds me back. It is the only thing holding me back, now that my stepmother is no longer doing that. I am constricted from realizing my dreams because I am afraid of them.
I know that if I put my dreams into action, they will not result in the bliss that my heart tells me they will. But I run into this dilemma: do I let my dreams go on, and merely try to be content with their distraction, or do I do something about them? Do I approach that boy who stole my heart five years ago, and tell him, flat out, all out, "I love you"? Do I keep believing that someday, after hard work and hundreds of Top Ramen dinners, I will make it to England, to live my dream as an English teacher in the city that I pine for, day and night? Where do I draw the line between reality and fantasy? And where is it okay for them to blend together into a mellow grey--for the blackness of truth to fold into the silver embrace of dreams?
Do I listen to my intellect? Or my heart?
Even though I have been disappointed countlessly, I must say that I do still believe in my dreams. For 17 years of my life now, they are all that have kept me going, hoping that someday, somewhere, somehow, my dreams will come true, and I will be happy.
But before I can be happy in England, or anywhere, I have to be happy here. I have to take the risks to make that happiness happen, and stop letting time pass me by. I have to dream, before it's too late, and my dreams become nothing more than my last regrets, and my last words.
As Walt Disney himself once said, "If you can dream it you can do it." And to compliment him, Les Brown has said, "Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears." There is no room for fear in this short life we all have been given. Embrace your dreams. That's the only way you will ever find them; running away from them doesn't bring them any nearer to reality.
All the love,
Ashlynne <3
Yeah. So not.
But there are so many other things that disappoint us in life, besides unrequited love: family, friends, ourselves, our future, memories, plans, religion...The list goes ever on. The catch-22 is that we are disgruntled about our realities because we dreamed they would be different, and yet we still continue to dream, because dreams are so much better than reality.
At this point, I believe I'm rambling. But the point I am trying to make is this: dreams may set us up for failure, but they are so worth it. To take a page out of Disney's book (or rather, to take a scene from one of the corporation's more recent films), the story of Rapunzel as portrayed in Tangled is centered around dreaming. My favorite line is this: as Flynn Rider lays dying in Rapunzel's arms, he says, "You were my new dream." These two unlikely companions had embarked on a journey together, both seeking to realize their dreams, only to find that what they had been searching for all along had been each other. Now, of course, Flynn does not truly die. (Er, spoiler by the way.) It's a Disney movie, and there is no way in hell they are letting that happen. But in reality? He would have gone. He would have gone, and he would have never embraced the dream that he had. Fear held him back, like it holds so many of us back. It holds me back. It is the only thing holding me back, now that my stepmother is no longer doing that. I am constricted from realizing my dreams because I am afraid of them.
I know that if I put my dreams into action, they will not result in the bliss that my heart tells me they will. But I run into this dilemma: do I let my dreams go on, and merely try to be content with their distraction, or do I do something about them? Do I approach that boy who stole my heart five years ago, and tell him, flat out, all out, "I love you"? Do I keep believing that someday, after hard work and hundreds of Top Ramen dinners, I will make it to England, to live my dream as an English teacher in the city that I pine for, day and night? Where do I draw the line between reality and fantasy? And where is it okay for them to blend together into a mellow grey--for the blackness of truth to fold into the silver embrace of dreams?
Do I listen to my intellect? Or my heart?
Even though I have been disappointed countlessly, I must say that I do still believe in my dreams. For 17 years of my life now, they are all that have kept me going, hoping that someday, somewhere, somehow, my dreams will come true, and I will be happy.
But before I can be happy in England, or anywhere, I have to be happy here. I have to take the risks to make that happiness happen, and stop letting time pass me by. I have to dream, before it's too late, and my dreams become nothing more than my last regrets, and my last words.
As Walt Disney himself once said, "If you can dream it you can do it." And to compliment him, Les Brown has said, "Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears." There is no room for fear in this short life we all have been given. Embrace your dreams. That's the only way you will ever find them; running away from them doesn't bring them any nearer to reality.
All the love,
Ashlynne <3
Do not let your dreams always be dreams. --Unknown
We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. --Willy Wonka
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