Cari-bein'

Wardrobe Change

As my mother and I were sitting having coffee yesterday morning, it suddenly occurred to me to ask her something I had never asked her. It seemed a bit odd to be asking it now, at this advanced age. But it seemed even odder that I'd never before been curious about the answer.

The question was this: When I was young, what did you imagine I might grow up to be (or do)? Without hesitation, she said, "I imagined that you might be a model or an actress or a dancer...something that would allow you to express your creativity." (Keep in mind that I have no recollection of the "C word" ever once being mentioned in my house by anyone.) "I always saw you living in either New York or Los Angeles." I was stunned, because those were the exact things I dreamed of being and the places I dreamed of living. But I never told a soul. No one. And it's not like either of my parents ever asked me what I dreamed of doing when I grew up.

I then felt compelled to ask (now that it's all ancient history), "Why didn't you ever tell me that?" At first she claimed she had, but on further discussion it became clear that she thought she was telling me by exposing me to certain things (dance and modeling classes, for example). She pointed out that I rebelled against those things after a certain point and I did my best to explain that it was because I felt like I was being forced to do those things so that I would be an extension/expression of her unfulfilled dreams--rather than being allowed to do them my way, on my own terms. And she acknowledged that she questioned her motives at the time, wondering if she was exposing me to certain things to please her own unfulfilled desires.

I can't begin to express what it would have meant to me to have even one adult in my childhood tell me that they could see who I really was. Or to have her encourage me to go in those directions as she pulled away in her U-Haul at the beginning of my freshman year--to let me know that even though the environment she was leaving me in was the LEAST conducive for pursuing those pathways, that if I stayed strong and remembered who I was, anything was possible.

And I only think of this now because I'm finding it incredibly freeing to reveal those secret dreams that I kept locked away for all those decades. It's been a particularly burdensome secret. I've become keenly aware as I (and we) prepare to embark on the next chapter in my (our) life--and as I narrow my focus and direction in terms of what I want to pursue and how I want to engage myself in this next chapter--that I must allow myself this (circular) process of recognition, revelation, release, regret, renewal, revivification and regeneration. Because it seems to me that ultimately dreams never die...they just wear new clothes.

posted by Marilyn @ 7:10 AM