My favorite dream

"I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that would suit me, so that is my favorite dream." - Louisa May Alcott

Cliche to start a post with a quote? Yes. Normally I care, but today I don't. As a normal person, I have put quite a bit of thought into, "what is my dream life?" I don't have a plan - people usually think I have my life in order. I have snippets, and most of the time, they don't really seem to gel and fit into just one life. I'm not clinical, but I am sure I have split personalities. Sometimes my desires for two things are so strong, I feel myself splitting and tearing in half.

I want to be a famous singer, I want to make a lot of money, I want to be a mother of three children, I want to go back to graduate school, I want to wear a suit and be in charge of a company, I want to own a community theatre, I want to be the principal of a school, I want to be dictator of the world, I want to disappear in a crowd and have no one know my name, I want to read every famous book ever written, I want to write for a big literary magazine, I want my life philosophy to be studied in colleges all over the world, I want to die young, I want to live past 100, I want to be skinny, I want to like running, I want to travel around the whole world, and I want to sit on the couch and watch movies and sleep all day.

Some of these things could happen to the same person. But many of them are in direct conflict with one another. I think Louisa had it so figured out! Pick something and just push with all your might until you reach the finish. I wonder if she felt conflicted at all? Sometimes I curse being American (only in a very limited, non-serious sense) because my whole life has been about choice and having any option at my finger tips. I don't even have a rich, over-powering family with a legacy and a life plan mapped out for me.

My favorite dream is the one I have about being really old, sitting on a porch at my vacation home on a lake talking with my daughter and granddaughter about their lives and their own dreams.