The Gospel According to Michelle and the Bullshit of “The Dream X____”

As I was surfing the internet last night, I came across an advertisement promising I could save for retirement AND send my children to their “dream” college.

This is was opposite of click-bait for me. I couldn't read further.

I'm all in favor of people having dreams, but we need to scrap this whole idea of the Dream House, the Dream Job, the Dream College, etc. and replace it with the Good Enough House, the Very Nice Job, or the Pretty Good College. The focus of "Dream" implies that there is only one home, job or college that is perfect and everything else is less than, which is a load of crap. There are plenty of nice places to live, nice places to work, and nice places to go to college. Sure, we only live in one place, work at one job (except for people who need to work two or more jobs) and go to one college, so picking the right one is important. But there can be many good options, and they all could be right.

Think of these things as if they were dessert. Let's assume you like chocolate. You can choose from tiramisu or chocolate cake. Both are good. Is one a "Dream Dessert?" and the other a loser dessert? No. If you like both and you pick one, will you be okay with either? Sure.

I was walking to work this morning from the bus and was talking to my new friend, Slats. He works in higher education, and we talked about how the status of colleges is so influential in terms of where kids want to go. But is status necessary? For him, the status of a school implies you are buying an education, not earning it through hard work. With the emphasis on status, kids look at a college in terms of what it can do for them, not what they bring to the school community to make it a better place.

Which brings me to Michelle Obama and her new book, Becoming, which is awesome so far. She went to law school and was working in a big firm when she met Barack, who challenged all of her assumptions about what it meant to be successful. Even though he was wicked smart, he focused more on what he could contribute to the world rather than what it would give to him. Michelle began to doubt if law firm life was right for her, and was looking for a new path (page 146):

"I was realizing that the next phase of my journey would not simple unfold on its own, that my fancy academic degres weren't going to automatically lead me to fulfilling work. Finding a career as opposed to a job wouldn't just come from perusing the contact pages of an alumni directory; it required deeper thought and effort. I would need to hustle and learn."

I won't deny that fancy academic degrees open doors for people, but more important than that is "hustle," as Michelle says. Everyone--fancy school or not--needs to figure out their own path, and that will be a greater source of happiness and success, as we each define happiness and success on our own terms.

Which brings me back to Dreams Homes, Colleges and Jobs, and my conversation with Slats this morning. More of life--house, colleges, and jobs--is what we bring to it, instead of what it brings to us. I can find a dream house and never paint it or take care of it. I can go to my dream school and party away four years. I can find my dream job and become a slacker. Suddenly, those things aren't so dreamy. They lose their shine and appeal. Or, we can take a good enough house and plant flowers and paint and bake cookies and have friends over. We can go to a really nice college and have lots of friends and take interesting classes and attend campus events. Much of life is what we chose it to be.

Dreams

In physical therapy, my goals are to return my extension (straightening of the leg) and flexion (bending of the leg) close to my healthy leg. I went into PT Friday morning. I initially had figured that morning appointments might be better since my leg would be theoretically fresh. In the afternoon, my leg is tired from being up and about. I was wrong. I woke up and I was stiff. When I sleep, my leg bends. When I went in PT, my extension was horrid. I told Evan about bending my leg while I sleep, and he said to keep it straight when I sleep.

"How can I do that?" I asked.  "I am asleep and I don't know I am bending it."

"It is really hard for people to change the position of how they sleep," he said. "When you wake up in the middle of the night, make sure it is straight."

Last night, I was thinking about keeping my leg straight. Every time I woke up, I adjusted the position of my leg. Keeping my leg straight became part of my dreams. I dreamt I was visiting a distant corner of the earth, and we had to fly to get from one place to another. Instead of being a usual airline where you have to get folded up like an accordion to fit into the seats, this airline required me to keep my leg straight. Egads.

A Nightmare (okay, just a really "out there" dream) and Fertility

I had a strange dream the other night.

When I was a kid, I would go down to the breakfast table and recount my odd dreams.  At first, my dad would listen.  After about the 23rd time, my dad would roll his eyes and tease me.  I would like to say that I was scarred by the experience, that I was scared off of telling people about my visions in the night.  Nope.  I still kept dreaming and talking about my dreams.  And my dad continued to roll his eyes.  I stopped talking about my dreams after college and I started working.  My boss and I were having a casual conversation and I told him about my dream from the night before.  Mis. Take.  He told me that my dream had Freudian undertones.  He said I should not tell people about my dreams because then people could psychoanalyze me.  That scared me from telling people about my dreams.  After that, I got a dream journal and kept my visions private.

At the risk of having everyone on the internet poke into my psyche, here goes: I dreamt my daughter and I were both pregnant at the same time.  She is 13 and I am 44.  It was such a whopper of a dream that I could not make it up while I was awake.  This was the worst possible thing I could imagine.  IF we were both pregnant at the same time, either she would be too young, or I would be too old.  Neither would be good.

In the dream, I didn't know I was pregnant until I felt the baby move.  I went to the doctor and she said just because I had been pregnant before I still needed medical care with this pregnancy.  I was also freaking out because I didn't teach my daughter enough about birth control and I didn't think she'd need it so soon.

Here is what I think this dream means: My daughter and I have overlapping fertility now.  She is at the beginning of her journey, and I am closer to the end.  I never thought about this until I had this dream.  I imagine in the venn diagram of her fertility and mine, the slice that covers us both will be very small.  Which is fine.  It is supposed to be that way.  I feel like I am passing her a baton, that my future phase will be becoming a grandmother, just hopefully not too soon.  In the meantime, I feel like there should be a name and celebration for this overlap time, where we dance around the flagpole of fertility, drink raspberry tea, and pray to a goddess of fertility (there are lots to choose from) to protect and watch over us during this time.

While the thought of this overlapping fertility gave me heartburn for two days, I am actually happy for my daughter, with all that lies ahead.  And I am happy for me, too, with all that I have.  I have been pregnant four times and have two kids.  There was a time when I wasn't sure I'd be mom.  Even though the path was not what I would have imagined, I am grateful for where I am.  Even if it takes a nightmare to wake me up and think about it.