LOST DREAMS, OR MAYBE YOU JUST MISPLACED THEM

Lost dreams can be more haunting than ever, especially when you give up on them.

Like Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, you coulda been somebody.

A contender instead of bum, which is who you are now.

So you’re a big old loser, now what?

Let’s break it down:

The self-inflicted wounds are the worst. It’s one thing to get called out, another thing to go along with it until you forget how it started.

That’s when the real work starts, the self esteem work.

Remember the words of warning from childhood, when you told your mom about some hurtful thing hurled your way?

“Billy said I have skinny calves.”

“Consider the source, honey. You don’t have skinny calves, you have power calves. Look at Michael Jordan’s calves.”

When you’re weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, consider the source.

Kids feel the slam harder because they haven’t had the experience of being called out by someone who hides their problems by being a bully.

Like the kid in seventh grade who shaved, had muscles, and didn’t grow since then, we need to cycle through the moment and let it go.

There was a reason that kid drove to school in the seventh grade. He made fun of people and was good at it because he was sixteen in the seventh grade.

Hurt feelings matter, but matter less when they’re hurt by some side-burned man among boys.

Considering the source takes a moment of reflection. It’s mind over matter where you don’t mind because they don’t matter.

But it still hurts.

Lost Dreams Matter More To Button Pushers

If you’ve shared your hopes and dreams with someone you care about, but they don’t understand, two things happen:

They either want to know more because they have their own hopes and dreams, or they make fun of you.

Which one is more likely?

Baring your soul to another, who bares their soul back at you, creates a bond. If a bond isn’t what you want, you’ve got a new problem.

Telling your lost dreams to a therapist is helpful to begin healing from the feelings of loss; telling a friend about it, who then piles on with with their own loss, creates a spiral down.

In one case you show up weighted down by a sense of failure and leave lighter; in the other you’re shouldering more burden than you started with.

Think about that the next time you see a bunch of sour faces in a crowd. Too many people with high expectations are crushed when they are not realized. They look crushed.

An old saying goes that we’re born with one face, and life gives us another face. Take a look in the mirror and check where things are.

A Permanent Happy Face

Do you see your reflection and recoil with, ‘Not you again?’

Where does that come from? You’ve seen an example in A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga. Her dad sadly explains how great a singer she is, “But her nose.”

How many out there in reader land have had buttons pushed on their nose, their weight, their clown shoe feet?

Who has had buttons pushed because of where they’re from, where they went to school, where they live?

Repeat after me: “Consider the source.”

I knew a guy with one nostril in his nose from too much cocaine. No one said anything. Another guy had sawed the fingers off of his right hand and got a laugh whenever he shook hands and the other person recoiled. No one said anything.

Physical mutilation is more of a ‘could have happened to anyone’ thing. The mental part is more disfiguring.

What to say when someone you know falls off a cliff and starts repeating Fox News from the night before, who shows new interest in the paranormal? That’s a bad combination to answer to.

If no words come to mind, give a determined smile.

What do you say to big load of a man who gets his kicks by fat shaming others?

They have as many lost dreams as anyone, maybe more. Or maybe they didn’t have any dreams to start with. That happens when all they’ve known is, ‘You’re not smart enough to pour pee out of a boot with the directions on the heel.’

If, in this time of covid pandemic trauma, you feel things slipping too far one way or the other, find a song.

Let music lift your spirits.

End Of The Line Or The Start Of A New One

You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
Maybe a diamond ring

Maybe somewhere down the road away
You’ll think of me, and wonder where I am these days
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
Purple haze

Don’t have to be ashamed of the car I drive
I’m just glad to be here, happy to be alive
It don’t matter if you’re by my side
I’m satisfied

It matters who is by your side.

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