I’ve had the opportunity to realize some dreams in my life over the past few years: becoming a New Yorker, falling in love and getting engaged to my best friend, traveling throughout Europe. I’ve had some dreams deferred, like when I woke up on Sunday morning and expected to get to church without a curling iron burn on my boob.  And very recently, I’ve watched as some of my dreams have been pooped on, wrapped in a plastic bag, set on fire, and left at the doorstep of someone who proceeds to stomp the life out of them.

Excuse the melodrama–I’m planning a wedding and adjusting to life in a non-urban environment.

The ‘burbs, if you will.  A place where illogical occurrences like driving a car to the store and seeing children at restaurants are commonplace.  I have been a passenger in more minivans in the past two months than in my entire life, usually with a precious kid (who would otherwise be an asshole if I didn’t know and love his parents) kicking my seat and laughing maniacally.  All the while, I’ve been phoning and emailing and sending smoke signals (and, pretty soon here, bomb threats) to band leaders, flower arrangers, wedding coordinators, cake bakers, musicians and their agents, asking them to do the job that I’m paying them to do and hearing (long-delayed) responses like, “When you asked for a guitarist/vocalist, I thought you just meant someone who was capable of singing.  If you want him to actually sing, that will cost more.”  Or, “No, the band can’t learn that song.  But they do want to know if you have a wedding discount at a hotel in the area.”  Or, “Sure!  I can do that!” (Sigh of relief from me, followed by pause…)  “For an extra five hundred dollars!”

I had a vision of love, and it was more than they’ve given to me.  I am so ready to get my head out of this wedding’s ass and onto a St. Lucian beach beside the BF and a green flag whose understood message is, “BEER ME ANOTHER MARGARITA, SMITTY!”

I guess you call this confronting reality.  I had some practice with it when the BF and I got together in our fairy-tale, romantic-comedy-esque way and I walked around on cloud nine for a few weeks…then moved to cloud ten, then eleven, and so on, pushed back by confrontations with my very real lack of gratitude and default setting of Taking Things for Granted.  I realized early on that if I’m not careful, I can altogether forget the love story that got us here and get lost in the day-to-day ugliness of my own fallen heart, an organ that somehow (thanks, Eve) finds it easier to complain than compliment, see half-empty instead of runneth-ing over.  For the first time in my life, I felt like my dreams were landing in my lap–which made it clearer than ever to see the disparity between my moods and my reality, my willingness to be my own worst enemy.  Enough, I thought, and prayed.  I understood that I was going to have to be very intentional about not getting lost in the details of life, not allowing the big picture to disappear.  I was going to have to live with purpose, or I would fall into petulance.

I resolved not to let life run over me, and around that time I began to dream.  I dreamed about our wedding, and how I wanted it to contain all the things important to us.  I dreamed about the house where we would one day live.  I dreamed about the kids we would raise.  The vacations we would take to get away from them.  The places we would visit.  I moved from dreaming to planning, and plans are always dangerous for me when I forget to write them in pencil.

Cut to me crying over wedding dreams (plans) deferred: a couple fewer flowers on the cake, guests who want to bring their uncle’s neighbor’s dog to the rehearsal dinner, the band refusing to play R. Kelly.  Cut to me going to dinner with friends and their kids and draining my wine in record time as they describe sleepless nights and dodge paper bullets.  I got eight hours of sleep last night and still almost fell asleep on the way home from work today–how am I supposed to survive on less plus keep tiny humans alive?  Planning a wedding and contemplating parenthood are going to drive me to either alcoholism or insanity.  It seems neither would be a long trip right now.

Louis CK, a crass and hilarious comedian, talks about how babies pop out and stomp all over your dreams.  At least his act is funny. When the BF and I tell our friends who are parents about our plans to travel and have date nights even after we’ve had kids, they stare at us from war-torn faces, eyes ringed with gray, and start to laugh quietly, shaking their heads.  “Just wait,” they whisper under their breath.  “Just you wait.” Until we do have kids, the parents we know are doing a fabulous job of Stand-In Dream Stompers.

The trick is finding the difference between the dreams we need to let go of, that are unrealistic no matter what, and the ones that buoy us to something greater than ourselves, to a vision beyond what’s in front of us.  A vision worth fighting for.  Israelis and Palestinians reaching reconciliation due to an awe-inspiring speech from me?  Not likely.  The customer service industry in Santa Rosa Beach improving by mid-August?  Probably not.  Maintaining a loving relationship and home in the midst of daily life and my fallen nature’s efforts to tear it all up?  Dear God, I hope and pray for it.  That and date night.  And between prayers, I watch The Cosby Show and see how the pros did it, or read Langston Hughes and vow solemnly that my handful of dream-dust is not for sale.  Or I look toward the drivers’ seat of the car I’m in, where the BF is running commentary on the day and I find myself, despite being called away from my PLANS for dinner and wine and Chuck on the couch and into the office to fix a kid’s tooth, moving from petulance to gratitude.  And I get the feeling that the two of us might just be able to do this life any way we dream.