Dreamers

When we are little, we dream about big white unicorns and cereal bowls filled with candy. When we're a bit older we dream of getting into an ivy league college, dating the captain of the football team, meeting the lead singer of our favorite band. Then we get older yet. The dreams keep evolving. We dream of an amazing boyfriend, a fairy tale proposal, and a huge white wedding. Followed by the dream of a quaint house in the suburbs with a little garden in the back yard and a little family inside.
Of course, I never found a big white unicorn and the closest I got to candy in my cereal bowl was when my gramp would load spoonfuls of sugar on my grapenuts. I didn't apply to any Ivy League colleges, I didn't date the captain of the football team, however I'm still holding out on meeting Mark Hoppus and Tom Delong (Blink-182's lead singers). I had a couple amazing boyfriends, unfortunately they weren't the ones who eventually proposed and I had the big white wedding, but it ended in a bigger messy divorce.

Now I have my adult fairy tales. I dream of advancing in my company. Each day I take on a new project or new responsibility at work I picture myself looking at my bigger bank account, I picture someone handing me the keys to my brand new jeep I can finally afford. I picture buying a brand new pair of in season Monolos at full price! And when I start dating someone new, it's the same thing. We talk about the future. Our soon-to-be fairy tale. We talk about the vacations we will take together, we talk about the kids we will have. We talk about where we'll go camping, who we'll spend Christmas with, what kind of parties we'll host together. We talk about how many bedrooms we'll have and what sort of dog will be running around in the back yard.

The world tells us to keep our feet on the ground, focus on the bottom line. But I think the dreamers have the right idea. The dreamers are the ones looking at the "true" bottom line, and that's happiness. Happiness isn't about finding the man of my dreams, it's about finding someone to dream with me. I'm not looking for someone practical and good on paper. I want someone who will step outside of this normal, boring, day-to-day cycle we are all in and walk with me somewhere completely impractical. I think I've put too much energy into searching for someone who meets the criteria on my checklist, when in fact, I should be looking for someone who's reading the same fairy tale. I want to be okay dreaming about the life I want. I don't want to feel foolish about it, I want to believe that there is someone out there who shares my same visions. Someone who hasn't stopped dreaming just because reality has told us to stop.

So, I'm ripping up my checklist and opening up Cinderella. Ok, so she wore glass slippers, not a pair of Monolos, but we're both shoe girls, so I figure it's a good place to start.