The Dreamer and the Realist

I'm not really as aloof as I sometimes might sound. I do have this uncanny ability to put up my best defense mechanism- getting over it. But while that might be the end, there is usually a long journey of a means to getting there.

I got there quickly last Friday night when Justin told me his news. I feel selfish about the way I wrote the last entry because I didn't really address the most important people in the equation- my husband, and namely his comrades. It wasn't until I got a comment on my blog from one of the guys in the unit who Justin has come to like and admire that I realized my mistake (he calls him "good people"). John wrote that they were disappointed too. And then I thought for a good long while about how two more weeks makes them feel. I realized there are a lot more things that they have to look forward to in a homecoming, than the waiting families and friends can ever really imagine. I mean, after all, we have stood here on American soil, in our day-to-day lives (albeit a bit empty without their presence), but we got to get on with it. Their hopes, dreams and realities were essentially put on hold. And now, two more weeks will go by with them experiencing "Groundhog Day." I bet two weeks is a lot longer to them than it is to you or me. That's why I feel selfish today.

I am also selfishly devoted to finding a way to cope. I say it's selfish because in the last three years (really four, if you count his second stint at flight school) I have had to do a lot of that and I've become a master at this whole self-soothing thing, you know, at making myself feel better. Infertility woes- ups downs and in betweens, the loss of two grandfathers within eight months of one another, time for training spent away from the love of my life, a (now eleven-month) deployment to Iraq. I would say the list goes on and on, but really it stops there. At least at this moment. You see, I am not a pessimist. And while I like to call my husband one on occasion, he always replies, "I'm not a pessimist. I'm a REALIST." But I am neither. I am the eternal optimist. The somewhat UN-realistic optimist. A dreamer. In a favorite song from my childhood, Nanci Griffith sang:


Where are all the dreamers that I used to know
We used to linger beneath street lamps in the halos and the smoke
The wing and the wheel, came to carry them away
Now they all live out in the suburbs
Where their dreams are in their children at play

At seven years old, listening to the Texas folk artist from the backseat of my parents' minivan, I knew not what she sang. I simply didn't have control over the cassette player that was frequently filled with the music choices of my godparents and their heritage- rubbing off on my mother and creating in her a deep, deep love affair with the Lonestar State.

Nowadays, I understand. I get a little caught up in the future, and am not so concerned with the past. In the middle of doing so I often forget about the others who are on this journey with me. Too busy dreaming, I guess. I am selfish in my dreams. But less so in my actions I hope. I would follow Justin wherever he wants to take me. And I will do it without complaining (for the most part). I am caught up in my own love affair. And it makes me do things I otherwise probably didn't dream about.

There is one thing I know from listening to that song: I want tokeep my dreams. As a matter of fact, I want them to come true. And as a sidenote: I don't want to move out to the suburbs and live vicariously through my children's imaginations. I want our future family to be a product of mine and Justin's love affair with one another, first and foremost (those of you who have children will say, "Right. Let's see how that works out for you."). But it's good to have dreams.

So right now I am dreaming. I can't tell you everything I am dreaming about, but I will tell you one of them: I am dreaming of a Monday in March, where Justin flies back into my life (remember, it's the "WING and the wheel" that carry things away). After he gets home, maybe I'll fill you in on some of the dreams we dream together, and those that we dreamt apart. One thing is for sure- I did a lot of it while he was gone. We'll sit around and I'll fill his ear with many of them, and inevitably, he will bring me back down to earth once more.

In the words of Nanci, and as a shout-out to my mother (because she's busy dreaming with me), "Here's to all the dreamers... may our open hearts find rest."