dreams

I have simple daydreams. I envision them again and again as I fall asleep in all their intricate detail, but they are simple. Humble. I do not want palaces. I don’t even picture myself being rich and famous. I don’t want power or prestige or ease.

I imagine children and books, kitchens and gardens, and a husband.

I want to play with my children, skip rope with them, color in coloring books. I will read aloud with all the proper voices, and we will experiment with recipes. I will cuddle them and tell them I love them, and I will panic that I am failing. I want my home to be full of loving chaos: too many faces in and out, too many bicycles on the lawn and too many shoes at the bottom of the stairs. They’ll bring their friends over for rowdy games and family dinner. I want to hear first words amid indecipherable gurgling. I want to smell them after baths. I want to take too many pictures and watch them sleep on nights when I’m restless. I want to teach them to waltz, to take them hiking and to cry at their baptisms, weddings, or graduations. I want to be a mother.

My home will burst at the seams with books. In my lavish dreams, I have a real library with a dark leather sofa and dim lighting except for the lamp. I could retreat there to gorge myself on books. I’d go back again and again to beloved classics, and I will buy books because of their cover art. The room will get a little dusty, but it will be quiet—the only quiet room in the house. Maybe I won’t have a library. Instead, books will pile toward the ceiling, some laying sideways on top of others on random shelves around the house. And I will write my own books, wedging myself in whatever available corners to type out the stories parading in my head. Characters will come alive through my words, words that will likely remain forever in the dark of my personal scribbles. That will be enough for me: knowing these worlds intimately, even if no one else every will.

I want to cook, to make my kitchen a central place for family gathering, not a secreted corner of utility, but a vibrant heart of the home. I will bake. If I am poor, I will discover ever new and ever more-creative uses of pastas and beans. I can make casseroles. I will make sandwiches and cut off crusts. I want to monitor the health of my family and fool them into eating what they need.

I want to dig in the dirt. Weed, water, trim, transplant. Surround myself with life.

I want to marry, to be a wife, to belong to someone. The faceless man I picture in my future is my best friend. He and I talk about things: sad things, happy things, serious lets-make-plans things, and goofy I-overheard-this-today things. We’ll be partners. I want him to value what I do during the day, what I think about the books I read, my opinions on joint decisions. I hope he thinks I am beautiful and sometimes can’t keep his hands off me. Our children will be embarrassed by our kissing. When we fight, I hope I want to be the first to make it up. I want him to be dedicated to God first, me second, the family third—those above all else. I want him to remember little things, just to reassure me. I need reassurance sometimes, and I don’t expect that will change. I want to remind him why I love him. I want to pray together.

I don’t know if I will ever have any of these dreams. The crossroad I face at graduation is unrelated to my ultimate hopes. But how can I say aloud what I want next, when saying makes me so vulnerable? I must make plans with the options presented to me .I may get a job, or go to graduate school. I hope to do the latter, to study a subject I continue to love. And I will get fulfillment out of personal growth, while I wait and work to make my real dreams come true.