I am a daydreamer. I always have been. I remember in my younger days, when my parents were worried about me (as most parents are worried about their 15-year-olds), I had to answer the counselor honestly when asked if I daydreamed. Then, of course, the counselor, dressed in a flowing purple dress and smelling of lavender and aloe, would jot something down.
I let myself have a very nice daydream today (I do have control of them), in which I was an unmarried homeowner. I was fit and healthy, with long hair which was not in a pony tail, and long earrings (both things a woman with babies could never have). I had just finished my supper of roasted vegetables, fish, and fresh fruit (something that a mother could never have for supper, nor a wife of a southern country boy, unless she wanted to prepare two meals). I made myself a cup of hot tea and headed out onto my porch to watch the sun set behind the trees, and notice the way the clouds were moving, and appreciate the breeze across my face. As I drank my tea, I read the paper. When darkness came, I retreated into my sitting room, into my favorite well-worn chair, and under the glow of a warm lamp, I placed a phone call to my mother, then read from a novel until I grew tired and ambled off to my big bed, where I slept for 9 straight hours.
I will never have this life. I will always be a mother, and I will always be a southern country boy's wife. I will never be able to tattoo my back, for example, without first considering them, nor take off for a week in northern California on a moment's notice, nor decide it would be nice to legally change my name to Firefly.
Yet I am certain that if Firefly did have the above dreamed about life, she would wish she had a strong man with a tuft of chest hair between his collar bones to hold her when she is crying, and pairs of tiny butt cheeks to watch as they run dripping from the bathtub to their bedroom. She would most likely not sip her tea and read her paper without a twinge of discontentment, if not a strong pang of such, and she would daydream of a life exactly like mine.
So I am glad to be on this end of dreams fulfilled. I would rather over-live than the other way around. I am grateful for the fact that I am, at all moments, on all days, needed by several parties at once.
And I always have my daydreams.
