"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.” - Anais Nin

Today, I find myself thinking about dreams and realities. I have often been described as a dreamer, and there is a great deal of truth in that description. I am an optimist. I can be unrealistic, and I work to temper my dreams with some realistic pragmatism. While my dreams of what could be remain one of the driving forces in my life, I have also learned to take real joy in the sweet, satisfying, and sometimes surprising, reality I am fortunate to live. This dance between dreams and reality continues to chart my course into the future.

Like many other boys of my generation, I dreamt of being an astronaut, or a rock star. I also dreamt of becoming a naturalist, or a botanist like Luther Burbank. I spent my time singing, and writing songs. Watching launches and broadcasts from outerspace. Exploring the backyards of the neighborhoods we lived in, and the nearby streams and fields. I loved going to the museums in Chicago, and especially reading. I read science, and science fiction, biography, history, classics, animal stories, juvenile fiction, and amazing books like “The Lord of the Rings”. I read and wrote poetry.

My mother used to say that as a boy I seemed to have a new idea of what I wanted to be every week. I was interested in almost everything and kept trying on new dreams for my future. While I always wanted to marry and have a family, most of the things that attracted me as a boy were more individual or solitary in nature. I was one of those kids whose parents had to get him to put down his book and shoo him out of the house! Never much for team sports, I was happiest alone or with a few close friends. We also moved a lot and I think now that I found dreams of my own something that I could carry with me wherever I went.

Through all my changes in aspirations, places and people, the dream that kept calling was of a life in music. I imagined myself making a life, and a living, signing for and with people, and making a difference by playing benefits and championing causes as some of my musical heroes did. I enjoyed singing in various choirs from grade school through high school, and particularly enjoyed my days singing in the madrigal group at my high school. I took a few guitar lessons as a 12-year-old and that began a wonderful lifelong enjoyment of playing and singing with and for friends and family.

I seriously considered a life in music, but ultimately chose to make music a joyful avocation and to take the time-honored advice “Don’t quit your day job!” I chose to follow a dream that called to my heart even more than music did by looking for a life partner, falling in love, and having a family. I’ve never regretted that choice and my life has be rich, and filled with love thanks to my lovely wife and our two wonderful sons. They make my heart sing.

My pursuit of dreams has also been one of the major sources of worry for me. I can feel a great responsibility to make the dreams I’ve shared with my loved ones come true. I have worked hard to give them what it felt I had promised, and most of my worries have focused on the possibility of letting them down. I am realizing as I continue to grow that some of those things I promised have been dreams of mine that they never asked me to make real for them. I am working to hold myself responsible in a new way for whether I choose to make these dreams real or not. I am remembering that these are my dreams and being careful not to feel it is my loved ones I have failed should I not realize the dream, and maybe not even myself.

One of the most amazing surprises in my life is all I gained by not having certain of my dreams come true. By not having some heartfelt wish granted. I never became a rock star, or a full-time musician. I never worked in the field I studied for at university. My first marriage failed and I only really found my way home to my dream of love and family the second time around. If my earlier dreams had come true, I would not have found my way to the love that changed my life. If I had not taken a job in IT as a better way to pay the bills, I would have missed the opportunity to work with wonderful colleagues at SHARE and at my university. If not for this career choice, and the support of my wonderful Sue, I would not have served on the SHARE Board of Directors and found some of our very dearest friends. In my head, I can hear Garth Brooks singing “Unanswered Prayers” as I write these words, and the song rings true for me.

I’ve even learned my own answer to Kahlil Gibran’s challenge that tells us that, if we cannot work in our passion, we’d as well take alms from those who do. I’ve learned that, for me, the work itself need not be my passion when those I am truly working for, these special ones I love, are my greatest passion of all. While I have worked hard and dealt with long hours and stressful times, my work has allowed us to share our lives together. It has been worth every effort. I’ve learned that hard work in service of love is deeply rewarding. Even occasionally working at some unpleasant tasks, and with some few pretty unpleasant people, has been worth the opportunity to live this wonderful life. Gibran wrote that “work is love made visible” and I know this is true.

As it turns out, even as my great dream of love and family came true, I’ve still had a life in music. It has been a wonderful avocation for me and has enriched the life I share with my loved ones. I have played in bands and for benefits, sung with and for people, made music, and made a difference, just as I dreamed I would, on a somewhat smaller scale. As I write and sing songs of my own, I share what is in my heart. My writing comes from a place informed by lessons I would not have learned had my first, apparently simple, dreams come true. I probably would have had to learn hard lessons even if they had… not all bands get along as I know from my early experience!

My dreams of a life close to science and literature have come true as well. I married a botanist’s daughter and we have had so many wonderful adventures chasing wildflowers up the mountains here at home, and visiting botanical gardens together and with friends. I have spent most of my career working with and around academics and their students. Serving them and becoming true colleagues, and friends, with many at the university has been deeply satisfying. My lifelong passion for reading continues, and I am enjoying sharing books with friends and loved ones. Thanks to all my dear ones, friends, and colleagues, I have continuing opportunities to learn and grown.

I will always be a dreamer and I hope that many of my dreams for retirement come true. I also hope that I will have the grace and patience to learn the lessons waiting for me when my wishes are not granted, or come true differently than I’d imagined. As I look forward to retirement, I am prepared to learn, grow and dream as I share this next real adventure with those I love.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0