How My Dreams Have Failed

Dreams can be stuff of legend, unbelievable tales of wonder and amazement.

As I dream, I have been to the mountains, mountains so high and vast that I am turned to nothing just by standing, watching a sunset so pure that a single mote of dust would have marred the sight that no eyes have ever seen. And I finally felt a connection to the place where humans have been given dominion over all.

I have stood in front of cameras broadcasting to billions of people and led nations to peace and understanding, speaking in dozens of languages as I touch the hearts of those whose understanding is limited by their own myopic vision.

I have pushed the limits of human endurance and tolerance for pain and exhaustion, as I became a metaphor for human achievement in the fields of sport, and in those moments, every soul had hope for the future, because in the end hope is what binds us together.

And I have befriended the friendless and the ignorant, reaching deep into the heart of a lost one, making contact and finding common ground and fellowship with a harmony of spirit; that despite all that is different on the surface, we are all just the same - in the same condition, the same trouble, the same joy and pain.

In in the end, my dreams have all turned to naught, and I am still here, not on the mountaintop, having seen nothing through these eyes, and having touched no one through these hands. Where my dreams have been, my body has failed to reach.

I have lost the path to my dreams. It is no wonder that night comes easily to me, because in my dreams I find fellowship where my reality has none.

It really begs the question then, because there are no answers as to why reality is inapposite to where I go when I close my eyes. There is a hollowness with the daily grind, the things we do to survive. The dreams are insubstantial and nothing fills their place. And the oppression begins, starting small in the morning and grows by the hour until the evening comes and I am exhausted from the struggle to breathe and to live.

How do I cope, other than to remain disciplined and stoic?

There is risk to push the world of dreams and the world of reality together. Aside from the impossibility aspect, there is the understanding that a failure here would render both worlds to die. Apart, both survive. Together, there is nothing but failure.

My dreams have failed because they have been far too perfect to exist in the world I inhabit. A sobering conclusion, but perhaps the only sane explanation.

-David