Mother Talkers

What's your dream?

by Erin

Wed Feb 06, 2008 at 08:18:21 PM PDT

I, and I suspect many of you, have about 20 alternative lives in my head.  Different paths I could have taken but, for whatever reason, didn't.  Not necessarily better or worse, just different.  

When I started grad school, I made a list of all the things I probably wouldn't be doing with my life now.  I decided to make a shadow box shrine to each of these things (which I never did...).  One thing on the list that looked accessible was delivering flowers.  It wasn't about the money or the status, I just really wanted to surprise people with flowers.  I got a job I didn't particularly need and, considering that I worked for minimum wage, didn't have time for, delivering flowers at a shop owned by a crotchety and somewhat abusive old man and his sweetish, eccentric wife. I learned that delivering flowers is much like delivering pizza, only with no tips and you have to see dead bodies.  People rarely act delighted--mostly suspicious.  In addition, everyone else in the room is gravely disappointed.  I think people are happier to get their pizza.

But I digress.  At the top of my list, my long cherished dream has always been to be a trapeze artist.  When I was a child and a young teen, I assumed it was my bad luck for not having been born into a circus family.  At the time, I was probably right.  But now, I see that I'm not the only one who's been nursing this fantasy.  There are trapeze schools in major cities all over the country, including Seattle.  Yay!

The cost looks prohibitive, and I think I may start out with adult gymnastics at the YMCA, which are free with my membership.  But I'll have to get to that trapeze school sometime soon.  It would be arrogant and foolhardy to spit in the face of a dream that I once thought would be completely impossible.  At 31, I don't plan to become a professional.  All I want to do is fly through the air.

It occurs to me that another accessible dream that I will probably get to one day is riding in a hot air balloon.  Funny that these two are both on my list, because I'm terrified of heights.

Do you have dreams that you haven't yet and may never gotten to?  What are they?

Tags: goals, dreams, trapeze, hot air balloons (all tags)

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