Go Ahead With Your Dreaming, For What It's Worth, Or You'll Be Stricken Bound, Kicking Up Dirt

--"Chorus", Erasure

"Hey, do you think there'll ever be a time when I actually get something I want? Or is failing at everyone really my destiny?" I asked her.

"Sure, sugar, with that positive attitude you'll be getting that Nobel prize in no time flat."

We had been talking about various topics for the last hour, but finally the conversation had settled as a lot of conversations did back then on two topics I seem to ramble on about--namely, Rachel and how I'd fallen short of every expectation I'd ever had. Both subjects tended to bring about sobering thoughts, which I, of course, felt the need to unburden on Breanne. I don't know why that was (or still is). I suppose it's because I believe I'm more profound at those certain instances in my life, as if the ghost of my sadness and disappointment scares me into flashes of brilliance. However, I've come to the conclusion that it isn't brilliance at all. What happens is that bitterness, angst, and depression tend to weigh me down like anchors, grounding me to reality. Then, when I stop and take a look around at the reality, I tend to have a wholly serious perspective. Any utterances spoken during these flashes of stoicism tend to sound graver and with more resonance than those spoken in bouts of laughter or hysteria. It's the nature of the game. If I speak with enough heft in my voice I can make even a dirty limerick sound like it's the Apocalypse.

There I was spewing the usual doom and gloom, expressing the sturm und drang of a period of my life that never quite ended, when I found a new connection I had never seen before.

I switched subjects slightly.

"Do you think when she experienced moments of doubt they were ever as forboding as mine are?"

"I think when she experienced moments of doubt she had a secret weapon."

"And what was this?"

"Oh, a powerful ally."

"God?"

"I think that much was obvious was in her book."

For all my talk about how much I admire Rachel and how I thought she was this awesome and awe-inspiring individual, I've always felt a little hypocritical to believe I could emulate her without bringing her devotion to God into my own life. I still resist that part. I still insist that one can live a decent, even excellent, akin to that of Rachel Joy Scott without tying oneself to religion, the bible, or God. I think about it like being able to buy the milk without having to buy the cow, to subjugate a familiar euphemism. She gained all this insight into what it was like to be a "goodly" person without necessarily being a "godly" person, a person who spent their whole life trying to convert people. I took that idea and ran with it in my own life.

But here was Breanne saying that maybe the reason I failed at my endeavor to become as reverent and wholesome as Rachel was that I didn't have the big G as a back-up.

"So you're saying that because I don't believe in God can actually help me out, he's chosen not to?"

"No, I'm saying that perhaps your dreams aren't something that you can entirely wing like a hen hoping to make it over the fence. I don't think you can believe in doing something one day and then forsake it the next."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, Patrick, that I hear all these bold moves you want to make in your life, then I start to hear about them less, and less, and less, until I don't hear about it all. Now I'm not saying you up and give up on everything you do, but I do think you have a problem keeping it up."

I laughed, slightly at the double entendre, but more out of nervousness. I'd always thought the same about myself. I always thought that I had a problem with choosing one path and sticking to it. For the most part, I'd accepted it as being just so. I didn't dwell on the topic and I didn't let it dwell on me. In truth, it had all but been forgotten by me over the years as I sought to fill my mind with other, much happier, thoughts. I tended to gloss over my problem with committment to a task I'd set for myself as being the jurisdiction of some other guy, some other entity, some other cosmic force like luck, fate, and even karma. To place the blame solely back on myself was unheard of in my circle of one. It just wasn't done.

Breanne obviously didn't know the rules about pep talks. You don't blame the guy in misery. You always lay the blame elsewhere.

"So what does that have to do with God?"

"Everything. Everything has to do with Him. Even if you don't think He's responsible for giving you all the treasures in your life, I think you can agree that going it alone hasn't been working out for you like you planned, right?"

"Correct."

"That's my point. He doesn't have to be the reason why you do everything, but, for you, at least, Eeyore, I think he can be someone who you can turn to as a means of support. Everyone needs support. Everyone."

"Isn't that what I pay you for, Breannie?"

"Hardly."

It's true. Lately, I had felt like I had been going about my life as the sole passenger on the flight. Lately, I had felt like where I was going and what I wanted to do nobody, not even my family or friends, including B., wanted to follow. That wasn't by choice, but by the fact that I'd chosen fairly lonely pursuits. I wanted to write something meaningful and yet, every time I set myself to that task, I always ended up being distracted by the very friends and family who were trying to support me. In the end, it became a game of not telling people what I was currently working on for fear they would want to read it. That would lead to them lending me "helpful" advice and ruining any objectivity I had about the subject matter in the first place.

Also, I had dreams about finding a love to call my own. That too, however, had gone nowhere. Seemingly, it appeared to be because I was always out to compete with some invisible rival who was the epitome of where a guy my age should be at. I could remember at sixteen, riding my bike near my house, before I'd met Jina, before, I'd met Tara or DeAnn, even before I met Breanne, thinking how someone my age should've had a girlfriend by now. It's this notion that I've lagged behind that's haunted me for a very long time. I never quite feel as mature as I think I'm supposed to be. I always feel inadequete to a task someone else breezes through, especial socially. I always feel like I'm just getting the hang of what it's like to be in an adult relationship. And yet, because I feel so outdistanced by people my age, I always feel intimidate by members of the opposite sex who are my age. I always feel like I've been lapped or something romance-wise, that I have nothing to offer in terms of romantic experience.

It's that reason why I always seem to go after younger women, if only to feel on equal footing with them. Yet, in truth, the age itself becomes an issue and I find myself with yet another failed relationship. Then, the cycle just repeats itself and I find myself alone.

"Okay, I can kind of see your point, Breanne."

"It's simple. Like my daddy always says, 'Birds don't know how they fly. They simply know they can.' You're always worried about how to do something and I think you lack faith that it is possible for you to do it. You're always so wrapped up in the consequences if you mess up that you mess yourself up."

"And you're saying God helps with that."

"I think that a belief in something or someone other than yourself does take some of the pressure off, yes."

"How's that?"

"Well, instead of worrying about how devestating everything's going to be when it all comes crashing down like a house of cards, you instinctively have the safety net of knowing He or it's going to make everything better afterwards. You don't have that now. All you have is the idea that if you fail, you fail for good. I, however, am firm in the knowledge that when something goes horribly awry, He's not going to let me suffer needlessly. I'm buoyed by that. I gain confidence that I can't ever truly fail with God on my side. That's what I think you need and that's what I think God can give you."

It has always kind of been the big divisive issue between us, this God debate. I've always told her that my belief that one can be spiritual without being religious. And she's always told me that one can be religious without being judgmental, which I've always thought. Necessarily, we come from the same place, which is the belief that one has an innate sense of right and wrong in them. I just happen to think that I developed it along myself and she just happens to think that God instilled it in her. Yet it's never been a matter of dividing us to the point where one tries to convert the other. I guess we agree to disagree on that point or, more precisely, we believe in disbelieving the other's side.

"Think about it this way, Eeyore. When you see pictures of Rachel when she was younger does she ever look worried about her future?"


birds singing bells ringing
in our hearts in our minds...

"No."

"Same as you probably if I were to look at pictures of you when you were younger."

"Probably."

"What about when she's older? Does she look worried?"

"No."

"Right, because she still has that faith that she's got that faith everything will be okay in the end, that faith that God is watching out for her. But you, you seem to have stopped smiling after ninth grade. Hell's bells, you've got this look on your face that you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders and it simply isn't true."

"And you're saying that's because I take too much of the worry on myself, because I don't have a belief that someone or something will come to bail me out of trouble?"

"Right. You look at your dreams as something to dread and you only dread them because you've already started to prepare yourself for failure. Dreams, my boy, are something to be amazed at and have fun with. It should be a hoot and a half getting your dreams. This doesn't mean it shouldn't still be hard work, but it shouldn't be all hard work. You've got to smile when you're going after them or else you'll never be able to get them at all."

"So you're saying I shouldn't be afraid of failing at my dreams or ambitions?"

"No, I'm saying you shouldn't be afraid to dream. Period. I don't know if getting to that point is going to take finding religion or merely finding the confidence in yourself through some other means. But you can't go about it the way you're going about it now. You're going to lose yourself in a mire of stress and negativity that you'll never recover from."

I don't know--I don't think I've taken Breanne's advice quite to heart yet. I still have doubts. I still complain far more than I should. But, all in all, I think she's opened my eyes to the possibility that failure isn't the end of the world. And, she's right, when I read Rachel's words, I see too she had doubts. But what I also see is that immediately right after she laid aside those doubts and went about the business of succeeding. She didn't let the threat of disappointment ruin her aspirations. She could do that because she had a secret weapon on her side.

I don't think I've found my secret weapon yet. But if I were to venture a guess, I have a skulking suspicion that she may not even know what an asset she is to me. She's a secret weapon that doesn't even know she's a secret weapon.

"I guess you're right, Breanne."

"Of course, I am."

"Thanks for the pep talk, coach. After that, I just might make my dreams come true yet..."

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers