Dreams

What you have is someone else’s dream.

What you are ignoring, taking for granted, what you are scared of, what you are excited about, what you don’t even notice anymore. What you are upset about, what stresses you.

What you have that you sometimes wish you didn’t, is someone’s dream.

I was reminded of this recently. Someone told me that my home was their dream home. I was taken aback by this, more so than I care to admit. My house is a nice place, it is comfortable, it is new construction by the local standards, it is safe and recently we have been fortunate enough to update a few things like the floors and some paint and it really is feeling more like our own (the sage green cabinets give me a dopamine dump even three months later). But it isn’t anything amazingly spectacular. It’s a ranch with too much of the foundation coming out of the ground because we were broke paramedics trying to make it through nursing school when we built it —pro tip, don’t build a house in nursing school unless you reallyyyyy thrive under pressure… we were also homeless for a month during this but that’s a whole different story.

Our home has the cheapest carpet we could pick because of the broke medic status, the deck needs to be stained, some of the bedrooms still haven’t been painted beyond the builders base coat and as much as I try, it gets cluttered and I fall behind on house work (5 jobs, who dis). These are the things that I see every day, that bug me, that stress me out, that make me feel like I am not doing enough. These 1500 feet often don’t feel like enough. But they are, my home is. What I forget to see is the art and the pictures on the walls and the cozy blankets on the oversized couch that invite people to come in and stay. The big island in the kitchen where I’ve had almost a dozen people at a time learning how to make pasta from scratch. The big garden in the back, the flowers around the house and the semi-feral chickens and ducks that run around.

I just see the weeds, the poop, the hairballs in the corner. And I shouldn’t.

I should see what I have been blessed with.

What are you stressed about that is truly a blessing? What is it that you have that others may wish with all their hearts to call their own?

I know that for me, I see many things that others have that I wish I could hold. Things they complain about, stress about or maybe are a little bit terrified of that would make me ecstatic. And its hard to see that. Its hard to feel that. Especially when its not really an envy, an envy can be passed by eventually, or rationalized away when you realize what it is. But when its more of a longing deep inside your soul, its harder to cope with or move on from. If you know that, know that I can feel that too. You are not alone.

Sometimes I wonder if it is selfish to feel that way. I wouldn’t want to take what someone has, not at all. I just want my own, for myself.

I want to celebrate the victories of those who have what my heart hurts for, and praise their achievements and be with them in their excitement but a part of me is guarded. I wish it wasn’t. But I think there are some things that the soul can’t let go of until its ready and sometimes it may never be ready.

So just remember next time your house is a mess, your baby won’t stop crying, your car needs an inconvenient repair, you can’t keep up with the weeds or that dog won’t listen, that very thing that you are annoyed, upset or otherwise unenthralled with at the moment, could be the very thing someone else would give the world for.

Appreciate what you have friends, what you have is someone’s dream. Don’t ruin it.