The Dream This Mortal Dares to Dream

Today's prompt: " What are your goals and dreams for the future?"

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” – Edgar Allan Poe

I have dreamed dreams uncountable; and as far as the future goes, my dreams for it have changed as often as a chameleon changes his skin. But through the years, I’ve sifted through them all as I’ve gotten to know myself better, all my dreams for the future have become condensed into one thing I know I must follow.

My earliest dream that I can remember was way back when I was little. My big sister and I dreamed it up together; and to my young mind it was simply a fact that it would happen. She was going to buy a horse ranch; and I’d go and live up there with her and we’d ride horses together. She wasn’t sure if she’d get married or not, but she said even if she did, I could still come and stay with her. But way back then there was no question in my mind; I’d never marry.

The next dream that I dreamed was again of animals. Steve Irwin became my best friend. I watched his shows every evening, both the one where he chases deadly creatures in the wilderness and the one about the behind the scenes work at his zoo. I wasn’t very clear on exactly what I wanted to do, but all I knew was that I’d like to work at a zoo, best case scenario, the Australian Zoo. Animals were what I wanted to spend my future with; I knew I’d never marry.

Goals faded for quite a while and I drifted without a real dream after that. I figured I would sell a bit of my artwork, enough to live on at least. Then I got caught up with the Food Network and knew I wanted to cook. But I also knew that I didn’t want to have a real cooking job; and I most certainly didn’t want to go to any cooking school. My mom always told everyone how I wanted to be a chef, but that dream wasn’t ever very serious, I only enjoyed cooking. I just wanted to get through life by doing what I wanted to do and having fun and I knew I wouldn’t ever marry.

Then it finally all clicked. I had hated writing. It was so boring and I always strived to get by with writing the least amount of words in the most boring way. Also, I was horrible at spelling (and still am!) But one wet afternoon changed all that. For composition I had a creative writing assignment, and my mom had to force me to do it like always. I don’t even remember exactly what it was, but I remember sitting outside. It had just finished raining and everything felt like a rainforest. I was sitting on our wet wooden picnic table and listening to the crickets. It was so melancholy and inspiring. A notebook was with me and I suddenly had words to write.

“If you go outside after a rain storm you might hear the crickets making their music. And the birds putting in a chirp or two. And the splish splash of the water dripping off the leaves on to the ground. It is wonderful to be outside after a rain storm there are so many sights and sounds here outside.”

That’s what I wrote, with the millions of spelling errors corrected. It’s not too amazing, but it blew my mom away. Compared to my other work, this was a masterpiece. It felt satisfying when she said in a surprised voice that it was really good; ever since then I’ve wanted to be a writer.

But my dream shape-shifting didn’t end there. My brother (the one that’s only five years older than me) decided he was going to write a book; and so, me being a little sister who liked to do whatever he did, I wanted to too. The Lost Treasure was the name of it, about a man who sets out to find a lost treasure, runs into a ghostly lady, talking cats and whatever other random things I threw in there to keep the story moving. It actually was inspired by something I wrote on a rush of inspiration in Colorado, and when I read to it my brothers and little sister, they loved it.

“And there before me was a lady with her back turned towards me. Her hair was as white as snow and she wore a gown made of shadows. Then she turned to me and to my horror I saw that she had no face! Just a black hole. Then she said ‘go back! Go back while you still can.’ And then she vanished and then I knew that she was the lady of sorrow.”

But that story never got finished, and sadly was lost when our old computer crashed. I wanted to write novels, and I began many of them without ever getting past the first chapter. Eventually I got so frustrated with all my unfinished stories that I began to question whether I could ever write a whole book. All I knew was that I loved writing and would never get married.

Then I turned thirteen, and with all the new movies my mom allowed me to watch, I fell in love with film. Through the next few years my dream finally got to where it is now; I want to work in the movie business. Ideally, I’d like to write the screenplays for movies, and possibly be a director too. But even if I have to just be a janitor on a set, I’ll still be happy. My love of creative writing has still stayed alive though, except instead of wanting to write bestselling novels, I’m more interested in writing a powerful short story. And yes, it might sound crazy to you humans, but I still know that I’ll never marry. That’s one plan for the future that’s never changed.

But when it comes down to it, making it in the movie world isn’t even my dream now. My only dream now is to do whatever God’s will for my life is. Whether that be fame, or staying out here in the country of Minnesota with my parents, working a “normal” job. I’m open to whatever adventure God has in store for me.

And that thing about not getting married, I believe it’s stayed the same throughout my whole life because it’s something that God’s calling me to. I realized that this might be more than just my stubbornness when I opened up a book at my sister’s house, Wait for Me: Rediscovering the Joy of Purity in Romance by Rebecca St. James. In the beginning of a chapter she wrote that most of us are born with a natural dream; for girls it’s to be rescued by a knight in shining armor, and for boys, it’s to be that knight. When I read this, I paused and thought “but I don’t have that dream… if anything, I want to be the knight in shining armor too.” And then I read the next sentence. She said that if you don’t have that dream, it could be that God is calling you to a life of singleness. Reading that sentence made me the happiest person in the world. (Why was I looking at this if I wasn't interested in any of that stuff? As much as I hate it, I’m going to have to add romance to my stories eventually)

My true dream is to live my life wholly for God, like a missionary would do in a foreign country, because this world is not my home.