Growing up, we all have a lot of dreams. Some of them practical, I want to be a doctor type of stuff. Some of them fantastical. Some dreams stay with us, I want microwaves to come standard in all motor vehicles. And some fade away. Here are some dreams I've dreamed and some I'm still dreaming.
1. A Walk To The Pool
Turning 10 years old is a big deal in any child's life. Double digits. Maximum use of all fingers to emphasize age. But for me the best thing about turning 10 was that I was finally allowed to be at the pool without parental supervision and more importantly it meant that I could walk to the pool. For 6 years I watched the cool older kids saunter in the pool gate, towels draped over their shoulders, tivas thwacking arrogantly on the damp concrete. The only time they acknowledged their parents was when they need $.50 to get an orange soda from the cola machine. They were awesome. They also, it turned out, lived a few houses down from the pool. Me and my gang lived a good mile away from the pool and boy were we in for a rude awakening the summer of our 10th year.
To be honest, I kind of cheated the 10 year rule. My birthday is at the end of August and all my other friends turned 10 earlier in the year. I begged my mom to let me walk to the pool that first Saturday in May with all my other buddies. My mother tried to warn me. It's a very long walk, she said. There are a lot of hills and it's very hot. "What. Ever. Mom." I said, throwing the full weight of my nearly 10 year old sass at her. I told her I would die if my friends got to walk to the pool and I had to ride in the suburban like a baby. It wasn't my dramatics that made her relent so much as it was me promising to weed the entire garden if she let me go (a nickel allowance scam if I've ever seen one...but that's a story for another day).
I was so excited. All the big kids in the cul-de-sac were meeting at 9 AM. I had picked out my best Disney towel and shined up my jellies (rookie mistake), my day had come! We set off, a pack of joyful youths, frolicking in the Georgia sun and we arrived, straggling in one by one, beaten by the great mountains of the neighborhood, zapped of our strength and eyes streaming from the sunscreen that had melted from our faces. And there stood our mothers, triumphant.
As we got older, our legs grew and the distraction of boys we had crushes on made the journey to the pool easier. But heavy lies the burden of dreams come true.
2. Monopoly, Victorious
As everyone can agree, Monopoly is the absolute worst board game in the history of the universe. It is infuriating and never ending. I have always been very competitive about very inconsequential (but important) things. Who knows the most Harry Potter trivia, who can recite the Gettysburg Address, who won the St. Jude Award...the list goes on. So naturally I always wanted to win Monopoly. My strategy was always, and remains, the same, buy all the railroads and Atlantic Avenue. The number of times I was sent to jail coincidentally coincided with the number of times I was sent to my room. Now that I am older, I know to excuse myself when I feel the all too familiar flush of competitive heat creep up to my face, but as a kid that is a hard emotion to contain. I have yet to win a game of Monopoly (but who has...seriously who? If you've won Monopoly I need you to contact me immediately) and so the dream lives on.
3. Moaning Myrtle
I wanted to be an actress so bad when I was younger but I never wanted to put in the effort. I just wanted someone to stumble upon me in the grocery store, you know in Publix, where all young talent is discovered. I figured an agent would see me trying to convince my mother of the nutritional benefits of Waffle Crisp over Cheerios and say "You, little girl! You are perfect. Be in my movie. Become a star!" Though I would resent being called a "little girl" I would accept and jet off to Hollywood to meet my destiny.
My acting frenzy reached its zenith between the first and second Harry Potter movies. Because the role of Hermione had already been filled there was only one role left for me to play, Moaning Myrtle. I would practice in my room into the wee hours of the morning, reading out lines from Chamber of Secrets, perfecting my Myrtle. I wanted the role so badly that I even attempted to audition. I still don't know how the whole "Hollywood" thing works but I'm pretty sure the way you get the role of Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter is not by auditioning for a small part in the YMCA production of "Steel Magnolias." That audition went so horrendously that the only thing I remember is there was a girl sitting next to me wearing an Aeropostale sweatshirt...I didn't know what Aeropostale was so I assumed she was foreign and that Aeropostale was American Eagle in her country.
The sting of that failed dream, doomed by laziness and also an ocean, was made all the sharper by the later revelation that the lucky actress who played Moaning Myrtle was in fact a 37 year old grown up lady. I'm coming for you Shirley Henderson.
4. God Grant Me Braces, Acne, and Glasses
When I was growing up I idolized my older cousins, like, I was obsessed with them (I still idolize them...but in a normal way). I wanted to do everything they did, wear everything they wore and say everything they said. I wanted to grow up and be just. like. them. They had braces, I wanted braces. They had acne, I wanted acne. They had glasses, I wanted glasses. My older cousins were the cat's pajamas. What most pre-teens dread, I could not wait to encounter.
I didn't have to wait too long for the acne...but braces and glasses...I was not that "fortunate." During pre-Algebra I used to unbend paper clips, bend them in to the shape of a retainer and put them in my mouth to make it look like I had braces. I fooled no one and cut my gums too many times to count. The glasses I took care of in 10th grade. I simply cheated on the eye exam by pretending I couldn't read the letters on the board. And I've been paying the piper ever since.
5. A Water Bed
I think water beds were a big deal in the late 80's and early 90's...don't quote me. So right around the time I was making my way in to my big girl bed. The dream of the water bed didn't hit me until I started watching reruns of Growing Pains in 1996. I wanted a water bed for a multitude of reasons, Mike Seaver being the instigator but not the most important. My desire for a water bed stemmed from three areas, fear of dying in a fire, fear of being kidnapped and fear of not being suave enough to be Mike Seaver's girlfriend.
I had, and continue to have to this day, a very deep fear of natural disasters. When I was 7, I was petrified of dying in a house fire. I was so scared of fires that I slept as close as possible to the door of my bedroom so as to allow me to escape as fast as possible. This fear followed me to college where I made my roommates time me to see how long it would take me to get out of our loft and out to the safety of the quad before our dorm burned down around us. The water bed was the perfect last resort for me. I thought if I had a water bed, in the worst case scenario should a fire start in my room, I would be able to unzip the bed, get in the water and wait for help to arrive. I did not understand the physics of the water bed at that time (or now for that matter).
The water bed also provided the perfect anti-kidnapping device. Piranhas. I would fill my water bed with piranhas and should nefarious persons try to do me injury, I would unleash the fury of my lethal aquarium upon them. No harm would come to me, for the piranhas would recognize me as their master and the villains would flee in abject terror.
And finally, Mike Seaver was the cutest, neatest guy I had ever set eyes on (at the age of 7). And when he grew up, he moved in to his parents garage and had a water bed. He was the ultimate adult.
6. President Of The Gumball Factory
I was obsessed with bubble gum when I was younger. And everybody knew it. Not only because I always had it on me but also because I chewed it really really loud. I chew bubble gum like it's going out of style. Like it's going the way of the Twinkie but never coming back. I loved it some much that when one of my siblings ate my gum without my permission, I called an emergency family meeting to discover the culprit (I think the error here is on my parents for allowing me to initiate the witch hunt.)
Long car trips is where I used to dream my biggest dreams and...along with developing an in-car microwave...I wanted to own a gumball factory. But not just any gumball factory. A gumball factory that produced one of a kind, hand painted gumballs. The finest gumballs in all the world. The workers would get shrunk down to gumball painting size by a shrink ray, work their eight hour shift (9-5 baby) and then be un-shrunk in time to be home for dinner with their families. And that is the dream I will never let go of, to be the sole owner of the world's foremost gumball factory.
The astute follower may have noticed that I changed the name of my blog. This blog is about the things I like to think about and the things I like to remember. Making people laugh makes me happy. Growing up is tough and sometimes the world feels rather heavy but I think we'll all be okay if we try to be kind, work hard, and have some laughs along the way.
