Life Has Killed The Dream I Dreamed


Gerry Rafferty is singing about Baker Street and I am thinking about the life I once dreamed of and the one I lead now. Thinking about how very different it is and how today it reminds me of a bad meal.

From the outside looking in all looks to be as it should be.

The table is set with beautiful plates and silverware, nice centerpiece and all of the expected accouterments except the steak isn’t cooked the way I like it, the mashed potatoes look like they can from an ancient can and taste like they were scooped out of a rotten skull and the vegetables are just nasty.

If it weren’t for the rolls there would be nothing here that tasted right but that doesn’t fix the disappointment or cure the hunger in my belly.

It is not the first time my meal fell short of expectations nor will it be the last. Sometimes this is just how it goes.

Life Has Killed The Dream I Dreamed

The music moves on and George Jones is singing He Stopped Loving Her Today.

My eyes are closed while my fingers work the keyboard. Got one kid wandering around the house while the other softly snores her way into the night.

My son the wanderer is frustrated with me because I don’t understand his position and told him I don’t have to. When you are my age it is a minor disagreement that will have no lasting consequence but the middle schooler believes otherwise.

He tells me he is getting really angry and I tell him to take it out on his pillow. Dad doesn’t always have to explain himself nor does life have to make sense.

Some things just are and I need him to go to bed because I need him to go to bed.

Midnight isn’t that far off and we both need things from this time. He needs the sleep and I need the quiet of the house to myself.  I like every age and love how we can have deep and sophisticated discussions.

But sometimes we bang heads, just as I did with my father. I remember those moments with more clarity than my son knows and I understand more than he realizes but this is one of those times where I have to be selfish.

Have to be selfish because we are ensconced in a particularly challenging moment and I am struggling to get through it. Doesn’t matter how confident I am about my ability to figure it out because we all hit those moments where we find the knot at the end of the rope and just hang on.

Life killed the dream I dreamed and now I am figuring out where it leaves me.

The Carousel Horse

The carousel horse I am riding is on the far side of the sun on the bottom part of the dark side of the moon. Experience tells me it is going to go back up and it probably will soon but when the waves knock your ass below the surface you don’t open your mouth until you feel air upon your cheek.

The dog and I wander through a few rooms. He watches me throw some ice into a glass and pour some Scotch, wags his tail at me and smiles when I tell him it won’t be much longer.

We head upstairs and step inside my daughter’s room.

Don’t know why she decided to sleep on the floor tonight but she has a blanket, iPod and pillow with her. Dark curls cover one eye exposing a button nose and a bunch of freckles and I stop to watch her sleep.

There is a lot I can say about dads and daughters and it would never tell you enough about her or the guilt I sometimes feel because I haven’t given her as much as her brother got.

He went to private school through fifth grade and she only got to go through second because I just couldn’t make it happen another year. Sometimes she asks me to send her back for sixth grade but I won’t do it primarily because it really doesn’t make sense for her to go back for just one year.

I think it would be much harder for her to step back into that world for just one year, especially since it would mean not starting middle school at the same time with the other kids.

But when you are ten going on thirty you don’t always agree with or understand why mom and dad make other choices so sometimes there are hard moments.

Rainy Days

Sinatra is singing It Was a Very Good Year and it is hard not smile. Some of it is because of the memories it brings with it and some because I dream about writing a song like this.

We are in living during the time of rainy days and cloudy skies. During the time when you look out your window and wonder what it is you are looking at because the drops sliding down the glass obscure and distort your view.

That dream I dreamed floats behind my eyes and I wave goodbye to it. It is not the first time I have done that and it might not be the last time.

I am doing all I can to just roll with the changes and to remember that some of those dreams stopped being interesting to me long before I let go of them.

Some had their moments in the sun longer than they deserved because inertia made it easier to maintain than move but those days are mostly gone.

Now I am pretty good at rolling with it and just going along with the current but there are those moments where the old habits rear their head and the challenges are harder than they should be.

But most of the time when I remember that I know things and look at the accomplishments of the recent past I smile because this moment in time won’t last much longer.

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1 Comment

  1. Larry November 16, 2014 at 5:06 am

    I am feeling some things similar but I have not yet written about it. I don’t know if I want to share this sort of thing. If and when I do, I think you will appreciate it.
    While this may sound simple, I don’t think it is. At all. Dream another dream. To quote Springsteen. “Some people spend their whole life waiting for a moment that just don’t come. Don’t waste your time waiting.” Like I said, it’s not simple. Believe me.

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