From The Storyteller
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July 16, 2018, Dreams
5:30 in the morning and Elaine and I are heading home, driving north out of Dallas. Traffic is bumper to bumper at 65mph on Interstate 35E. Elaine turns to me smiles, and simply says, “Thank you for not wanting to live in Dallas.” A number of years ago (30+) we did. Our stay in Dallas was good. When my time at SMU was done, our dreams lead us elsewhere. Because of those dreams we’ve lived in small rural towns, big cities, on our sailboat, and now in Lubbock. Still five hours from home, our conversation drifted to where our kids live. Four have chosen the huge urban areas of Dallas, Houston, the greater Kansas City, and just north of San Francisco (you might have noticed they live in different cities). The other three have chosen smaller communities. No family feuds, just each one following their own dreams. Seven, great young adults (being 70+ I get to say that) making decisions about how best to live out their dreams. This thoughtful car talk ultimately settled on the fact this diversity of dreams was something for which we were responsible. They were raised with the understanding that having a dream, and to live out that dream, was a good thing. This understanding also made clear that, in order to live out one’s dream a person needed two things - courage and hard work. Hard work is necessary to bring about those “exciting” times included in the dream. Courage is necessary because not all of those “exciting” times would be fun. Experience has taught us there is at least one unexpected gift that comes from living out our dreams – a deep joy flowing from the journey itself. Our current dream – that our children continue to experience this joy. Moral – Living our dreams can be messy; however, messy can really be fun. |