Written by venaalex

When Life Does Get In The Way

an original blog post that reads: We spend our teenage years looking forward to all the things we will accomplish once we're adults. We dream and wish for all sorts of different things: love, family, stability, travel. But when does it all actually come true? When we're in our 30s and we wonder when we'll have the time between work and getting enough sleep to enjoy life? When we're in our 50s and we're striving for the youth we once had, but still don't have the time to do the things we've always dreamed of? Or when we're 90 and we've got all the time in the world but it's too late? The truth is that we make our own dreams come true. We can't spend our lives waiting for our fairy godmother to come and give us a pretty dress and make everything happen for us. That's all on us. This drawing is a mash-up of all the things I wanted to achieve and the places I wanted to go before I die. But, looking back at it a year later, it's clear how my dreams have changed. Yes, I still want to sail around the world and travel to beautiful places across the globe. But I don't think I'll be the CEO of Starbucks. I simply don't want that anymore. I know I want to have a high powered job in New York City, but what it will be I don't think I could be sure until I have it. The reality of it is, is that your dreams will change. You may think you didn't achieve them because "life got in the way" but really the way your life played out altered the way your dreams look. Don't think that just because it didn't work out exactly the way you planned it from the beginning that things didn't work out for you. Imagine if every girl that wanted to be a princess and every guy was a quarterback in the NFL... the world would be full of uptight snobby girls demanding everything and big buff guys playing football. But there wouldn't be any butlers to wait on the princesses or cheerleaders to cheer on the football players. Everyone would be the same and no one would have ever grown up. As you grow your dreams have to grow with you. So stop worrying about what dreams you had when you were little that didn't come true and start worrying about the dreams you've already lived. Find your sailboat. Where will it take you?

2015. I must have thought I was pretty smart in 2015. Hell. Look at the last paragraph or so. I actually had my head on just right.

I’m sitting here and Lee Brice is singing in the background that he’d take years off his life before he took life off his years.

I’m also sitting here wondering when everything went so wrong. Maybe if I hadn’t been so hell-bent on leaving, I’d be halfway through a degree in historic perseveration. I’d be sitting downtown in some quaint coffee shop surrounded by new best friends.

Maybe if I hadn’t decided I hated Clemson before I ever got there, I’d be there instead. I mean Lee Brice liked it a lot.

Maybe my sailboat should have been taillights.

I can’t help laughing thinking that a version of me ever pictured a future that involved anything more than a bunch of cows and dogs and coffee.

But hey, that version of me didn’t know this version of me. That version of me didn’t spend days stuck in bed, glued to the sheets by pain.

Its hard to imagine what any real dreams look like. Hell, I can’t even stick to a day to day plan. I can’t commit to make some fancy cauliflower dish, so now the cauliflower is spoiled. So what does that say about dreams.

I’m starting to think that life got in the way. This disease. It got in the way.

Maybe its time to accept that the only dream that matters is one where a cure exists. One where medical advances come and don’t come with a price tag more than my rent. One where I can watch storms roll in and not feel my head pulse with the shifting storm front. One where I can make plans without also making an excuse for why I can’t go through with them.

One where I can go back to focus on chasing sunsets.

This is the part that most people don’t see. Or don’t understand. Or maybe they see it and don’t want to take the time to acknowledge it. What do people do when all of their dreams get taken away from them? Hell, I never got to play a sport because some jackass screwed up my knee. I’ll never get to serve my country. I’ll never get to be a detective, not with this condition. I wouldn’t be fit for duty.

What do people do?  I guess at the end of the day we just go on. We find some new passion. We find something to focus on. Something.

I’m not ready to stop fighting. I’m not ready to turn my life over to this disease. But in some ways, I already have.

I used to naturally wake up at the crack of dawn on Sundays, and would make my way to Starbucks to grab my morning coffee. Last night, all I wanted to do was wake up this morning, bright and early and go grab that morning coffee again. The writhing pain put a hold on that one today. But maybe tomorrow.

A.

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