Is that all there is?
The problem with fairy tales is they only tell the story of the princess or the prince. They don’t tend tell the lives of the servants who endlessly slaved to support the fantastic castles, amazing kingdoms, and lovely lives of the main characters. Let’s face it, most of us are a heck of a lot closer to those servants than we are the princess with the glass slipper. I have a number of amazing and talented people in my life and as of yet not a single one of them has been handed a life of ease because they had a small and delicate foot.
I don’t want a life of ease, to be honest if I were to win the Lottery I would most likely keep doing what I am doing now. Of course, I would do some of it from a cruise ship in the Greek Isles, but I would still do it. I don’t have a problem with a life of dedication and effort. However, after a day of washing footprints off walls, poop off bottoms, food off dishes, dirt off clothes, etc. in addition to a day of work I feel lost beneath the requirements of my existence. String an endless number of those days together and I begin to forget that I ever was someone who learned to dance because it was fun or spent hours sitting by a window staring at the clouds and imaging my future in the brightest of pictures.
If that’s all there is my friends let’s keep on dancing.
I don’t think I stopped day dreaming because I grew up, I think I stopped because the hours began to run out in my days, and the days began to run out in my weeks, and my weekends became days to catch up on chores or focus on quality time with the family. Week after week began to run together, the passage of time whipping past me virtually unnoticed while I struggled with getting the lunches packed and research prepared and the clothes folded and put away. Which begs the question, is this all there is? Does one really daydream and work all their youth towards a life of work that leaves you too tired to dream?
Am I going to feel this way until my children have grown up and moved out of my house? ‘Cause that’s a damn long time to wait for the chance to daydream. Am I going to stop daydreaming all together? Will the ability to imagine myself doing all sorts of wonderful things fade as I get caught up, day after day, in the machinery of my life?
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all there is.
I am borrowing this, but it seems appropriate: You shouldn’t dream what seems possible. If your dreams seem possible, that’s not dreaming. With that, I say step into the impossible kind of dreaming–even when that seems impossible. Let ’em rip.
I get you. After 4.5 years of solo practice, in which I had a child at year 1.5, and a second at year 3, I have closed down my law practice. Could not juggle to the level of success that result in enough profits to justify further time a way from my 3.5 and 2 year old children, who have been raised by a combo of dayhomes, daycare, and other caregivers.
I could not let go, it was a long time coming but I could not let go of my practice. You know you spend a decade in school, and articling, etc., and if you are driven as I am, you think it would be a failure. But my kids cannot replace me, and my clients can replace me with a phone call. and that has only just registered in my stubborn, and tenacious brain.
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