In my younger days I had my fair share of dreams. Specifically, I had 5 that I wanted to see come true...
...well, six if you count my dream of becoming President of the United States. But after that incident in the bar with that guy and his goat...and how did I know he was actually going to take me up on that dare...I mean....really. He should have known the tolerance level of his own goat...and I never specified it had to be tequila.... But these things stay with you after the police report is written up.....so.....my bid for leader of the free world is clearly out.
Anyway. Five dreams.
So when I was younger I was a radio junkie. I grew up virtually glued to my radio. I would wake up and get ready to the morning zoo shows on KRQ and KZZP, I'd listen in on my Walkman on the bus to school (if you're younger than 20, Google it), I'd make mix-tapes of my favorite music in the afternoons on my cassette deck (which of course meant sitting by the radio for hours on end waiting for the song to come back on after missing the first 30 seconds of it the last time it played). And then I would fall asleep with the the radio in sleep mode at night. In my 12 year old world, to work in radio would be the ultimate dream come true. However, even though working in radio would have been totally radical, or tubular, or to the max (if I remember the correct vernacular of the 80s); I figured, why stop there? So I came up with my "dream list"...the five things I wanted to do in my lifetime. Obviously first and foremost, I wanted to be on the radio. The next natural progression was to be on TV. Next, I wanted to be in a movie. Finally, I wanted to be in the newspaper (and not just in the Police Beat section) and to be published. Now I realize that these may not seem like huge dreams to you, but looking back at where I was at 12, 13, or 14 years old...the idea of any of these things happening to me seemed as likely as my going to the moon. But that's the beauty of dreams, isn't it? It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else - it's your dream.
I feel very lucky that my dreams came true; truthfully, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. It hasn't always been everything I thought it would be, but no one ever said it was going to be. But how many people out there are still waiting for their dreams to come true...or even to realize they have any? And by the way, just because you've grown up doesn't mean you should stop dreaming. If you forgot what you wanted when you were 10, then come up with something new now that you're 40 or 50. There are no expiration dates on dreams, and no one ever said there was a point at which you had to stop dreaming. Don't ever doubt or give up on yourself. As they always say you are your own worst enemy, right?
Except for maybe that goat.
I would have made an AWESOME president.
