Dreams and the Little Box
“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, “Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course I’ve got dreams.” Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they’re still there.” Erma Bombeck
We all have two grandmothers if not more these days. So I can say with safety that one of mine made me crazy with her “too good to use” ruling. She had lovely dresses she never wore. They were, she would argue when we suggested she wear one, “too good to wear. I’ll save it for a special day.”
She had handsome shoes but always wore her tatty old things. Why? The new ones were too good to use, she insisted, except for special occasions – and those occsions never came. She had a photo of herself so lovely it would have won her the Mrs. America crown but it was too elegant for her to frame and hang up, she insisted. She called it modesty. I call it self-neglect.
When a local preacher realized I had never had a doll, he brought a baby doll with eyelet dress and china head for me. We made a huge fuss over it; the kind minister justifiably reveled in the good feelings he got from his kindness to a child. I’m glad he never knew that the little dolly was, as soon as the door closed behind him, tucked into a pillowcase and then into a bureau drawer. “Oh, this is too good for you to play with, “ I was told.
What is my point? It is this. If tomorrow comes, and we’ve decided that our dreams are too good for us, we will never have the reality of them. Our lives will be put, as my grandmother’s life was, in a box. And once in a while, more at first and less and less often as time goes by, we will peek in the box. And then, one day, we won’t even remember we ever had dreams. Or where we put the box.
On the other hand, if we hug all the good things that come our way and use every opportunity that we can find, we will own our dreams and will make them become realities. And we will own our lives.
Incidentally, after my grandmother’s funeral, I looked in her infamous cedar chests, where she put everything “Too good to use or have now” and they were empty. Visitors, family and others, had taken her “too goods” to remember her by, they said.
Meditation for the Day
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” Paul Valery
Action for the Day
As I live my life, I will give myself the right to have my dreams and to live them.
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