Did I have a dream? Perhaps, I did. Maybe, there was one beneath the layer of strict responsibility. I could often see a glint of it underneath the numbing weight of purpose or lack thereof. Perhaps, I traded it all away sliver by sliver in the seemingly significant sacrifices, negligible in the grand scheme of things. Often, I remembered pieces of it between the sips of countless cups of coffee I had by myself, for I could not stand other people for long and that I, myself, was tolerable in small doses. Tucked between all of that, I believe there was one.
While I sang songs about living in isolation, of this and of that, my dream was quite the opposite. My dream was of a noisy house, of a cacophony of the highest proportions, of a simple life complete with the picket fence and a yard. When I pictured it, I saw a breakfast table where everyone had to go somewhere, but there was still time to throw tantrums. I wanted the neat, enveloped life most people rejected in my time. I reckon it’s the only thing I truly wanted. I wanted it early too.
I had not thought about it for a while now. I was on the verge of forgetting. Dreams were often lost amidst rainy days where all one wanted was to get home dry. I had been running in the rain for long enough to begin revelling in it. The dream had all but washed away by this point. But like paint which appeared to have dried only for someone to touch it and wince in disgust, dreams were never entirely gone. The speckles of my dream still remained.
Don’t get me wrong, I grew up in a home where love has never ended. It was precisely why my dream was the way it was. I wanted to improve upon a painting already fit for museums, or even better, the memory of a child on a field trip. When I did talk about it, it was natural for people to point out how time was unimportant, but time was important. It was for me and for my dream.
We made do with what we got, however. It was all about making do with what we got. So, I was making do with my fingers crossed, gripping what’s left of it, afraid I might forget it all one day, quite like I forgot an umbrella in the stand by the door of a museum in a city where it never stops raining.