I Can't Even Dream
I had the random realization today that I've never run a marathon.
This is not a particularly odd fact. Many people--most people, probably--have not run a marathon. But I was writing an email and watched myself type the following:
It is one thing for me not to want to do something. That's fair. I don't have to do everything in this life. {Besides, I can't.}
But it is another thing for me to look at a thing and realize, "It isn't that I don't want to accomplish this thing, it's that it seems so impossible that my subconscious has refused to dream about it."
I try to keep those things to a minimum, but today I found one I hadn't realized existed:
Sad.
Is that it? Am I to go my whole life with that distance as my maximum? We all know it's rather a pathetic distance.
If nothing else, I want to be able to say I ran more than five measly kilometers in my life.
The thing about all of this is that once something is identified as on the 'I can't even dream of...' list, I have to choose what to do with it. It can't stay there. This list shouldn't exist.
The question remaining: Do I want to run a marathon?
Yeah, kinda.
So there it goes onto my list of dreams.
I'm not afraid of a long list of dreams. I'm not afraid of dreams at all. Sure, there are too many on my list to ever accomplish in my lifetime, but that's okay. It gives me choices. It gives me hope. If I fail at [insert dream here], there are twenty others to choose from and pursue. With a long list of dreams, I know I'll never be bored.
Maybe someday I'll run a marathon. Maybe I won't.
But at least we've established that I can dream about it.
This is not a particularly odd fact. Many people--most people, probably--have not run a marathon. But I was writing an email and watched myself type the following:
"I can't even dream of running a marathon."Which is of course very bad vocabulary to use when you are me. Because there is this part of me that pounces on statements like that.
It is one thing for me not to want to do something. That's fair. I don't have to do everything in this life. {Besides, I can't.}
But it is another thing for me to look at a thing and realize, "It isn't that I don't want to accomplish this thing, it's that it seems so impossible that my subconscious has refused to dream about it."
I try to keep those things to a minimum, but today I found one I hadn't realized existed:
"I can't even dream of running a marathon."When writing this email, I went on to say that the farthest I'd ever run was 5 kilometers. True.
Sad.
Is that it? Am I to go my whole life with that distance as my maximum? We all know it's rather a pathetic distance.
"I can't even dream of running a marathon."If I didn't want to run a marathon, that'd be one thing. But I kinda do. I mean, it's a marathon.
If nothing else, I want to be able to say I ran more than five measly kilometers in my life.
The thing about all of this is that once something is identified as on the 'I can't even dream of...' list, I have to choose what to do with it. It can't stay there. This list shouldn't exist.
The question remaining: Do I want to run a marathon?
Yeah, kinda.
So there it goes onto my list of dreams.
I'm not afraid of a long list of dreams. I'm not afraid of dreams at all. Sure, there are too many on my list to ever accomplish in my lifetime, but that's okay. It gives me choices. It gives me hope. If I fail at [insert dream here], there are twenty others to choose from and pursue. With a long list of dreams, I know I'll never be bored.
Maybe someday I'll run a marathon. Maybe I won't.
But at least we've established that I can dream about it.
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