Hopes and Dreams

I had some ideas about hopes and dreams somewhere on the back burner of my brain. Then I came across two different authors mentioning something similar and, not being one that believes in coincidences, decided it was time to move it to the front burner of my brain and start writing about it.

I believe that while the two concepts are related, they have distinctly different characteristics and meanings in our lives. For my purposes here, I will be defining "dreams" as what gallops through our brains while we are asleep and "hopes" as those aspirations that come to us in our waking hours.

There are those who hold that our dreams are merely our brains trying to sort through everything we've experienced during the day. Others say that our dreams are giving us information that we should use in our lives. Maybe they are both right, or both wrong, I'm not certain because neither option covers all the different types of dreams a person can have.

If they are merely a sorting mechanism in our brain then why did I have recurring nightmares in childhood of a giant, green Viking chasing me around while I ran on nothing? I had never encountered any giants, green or otherwise, nor was I acquainted with any Vikings. But the darned dream terrified me repeatedly for a couple of years. If that same dream was trying to give me information, what could it have been, aside from I should run away from giant, green Vikings? Perhaps there is some third or fourth purpose to dreams that would explain it.

On the other hand, during the years before I allowed myself to admit that my marriage had been a mistake from the first, I continually dreamt that I was rushing to the airport and getting on the first plane I saw, not caring where it went just so long as it went. Clearly, this was about wanting to escape and I recognized it as such at the time. And after I initiated the divorce, I had a dream that seriously disturbed me despite not at all being sure of its meaning at the time. In hindsight, it was clearly about a fear of being in deep water (figuratively) and being alone with no one to help me in tough situations.

The examples above are why I tend to think that dreams at night can have varied uses and meanings for us and no one fixed purpose.

Hopes, on the other hand, shape and define who we are, how we see ourselves, and how others see us. What we wish to be or to achieve says important things about our very selves and what we value. I've had relatively few hopes in my life for various reasons. When I was a teenager, I was always pressured to name what it was that I wanted to be. As I was a smart girl, did well in school and had a wide range of interests, everyone "knew" that I would BE something. What that something might be no one seemed to know and I received no guidance on how to figure it out. I had no career hopes. In fact, the one hope that I had had nothing to do with a career and has yet to be realized, although it remains a major hope in my life.

While I was in college, I was the target of much good-natured teasing by my family because I kept changing my major. It wasn't that I was particularly flighty, it was just that the course catalog offered so many different things that piqued my interest and it was very difficult to choose just one or even two. When I finally settled on philosophy, it came, seemingly, out of nowhere while I was studying textile design. It made me feel as if the way my brain worked was not really totally odd, but it was never part of my hopes to study philosophy.

In the years since my divorce, I've allowed a second hope to join the unfulfilled one from my youth. All my life, I have been the go-to person for anything that needs to be written. But, somehow, it failed to enter my mind that I should write. Sometimes, I can be incredibly dense for a bright girl. Despite the fact that several people who knew me well had repeatedly asked me "when are you going to write," it took an unbelievable amount of time for me to realize that I not only wanted to write, but was actually good at it.

What might it mean to have so few hopes in my life? I'm not certain at all. Perhaps it is due to some residual doubt in myself and my right to claim anything for myself. Perhaps it is a product of being a female in the time and place I grew up. Perhaps it is something else entirely. But the result, for me, is that those hopes that I do cling to have incredible importance in my life and, as a consequence, have the power to floor me when they go unfulfilled. I wonder if those who have many hopes for their lives have it any easier when it comes to the point where a hope is dashed. Or, perhaps, they are made stronger both because they withstand numerous disappointments and because they have more hopes to fall back on. I honestly don't know, but I suspect that the loss of a cherished hope is a personal tragedy, no matter how many other hopes one has.

President Obama

There are moments and events that are so full that they defy description; words fail, language limps and there are not enough adjectives. And pity the poor writer who feels compelled to make the attempt to put it into words. Last night in America, we had such a moment.

Old enough to have been aware during the 1960's, I recall the marches and the assassinations, the riots and the killings. I grew up in a time when those who would use the "N" word, did so with impunity. And a fight between teenage boys was termed a "racial incident" by the school administration rather than just the usual teenage stupidity. And I can't help but believe that just beyond the veil, untold numbers of those who died, perhaps without hope of this day ever arriving, are proud of what we, as a people, did yesterday.

And I consider the spirit of all of those whose participation enabled this to happen. All of those regular people, like myself, who contributed whatever they could in money or time so that hope could have its day. And then backed up their commitment by standing in long lines to fulfill their sacred civic duty by voting. We Americans like to think of ourselves in terms of our highest ideals; liberty, democracy, equality. And, in the past, we have all too often succumbed to giving these ideals mere lip service. Yesterday, we collectively not only remembered who we are, but acted on it. We stood up to say that we care what happens to each other. That hope is stronger than fear. And that, if we bind ourselves together, we can accomplish great things.

As I listened to how people around the world held their breath with us and felt happy for us, I felt profoundly grateful that we are now a step more closely linked to the family of man. As I received the congratulations of friends and acquaintances from the Middle East and Africa and Canada and Europe, I felt so proud of our country and of my small contribution to making this come about.

While watching Barack's speech last night, I saw a man who, while happy, was fully aware of the heavy responsibility he had just shouldered. I saw a good man, a thoughtful man, a man who has just sacrificed so many of the daily, mundane joys usually enjoyed by husbands and fathers across this country for the sake of this country. And I am filled with the deepest respect for and gratitude to him for this. And, I believe, that just as we came together to elect him, we must stay together to work for the hopes and dreams that we all voted for yesterday. We cannot send him on his way and expect him to do all the work. That is not what this is about. That is not what America is about. We must continue the effort well past January 20, 2009 and make our aspirations a reality for ourselves, our children and for those who follow us. We've picked up the gauntlet along with Barack and we can not put it down again. Last night's exuberance cannot be allowed to become today's complacency.

There is much for us yet to do. It's time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.