Someday, you’ll want to be exactly where you are.
Hear me out…
I had a dream recently that has challenged me to think differently about my current situation and the past year of my life. Before this dream, I already knew that if someone ten years from now asked me if I wished I could go back to being 30, I would say, hell no! You couldn’t pay me to go back and relive this year!
But after having the dream, I’m challenged to think, well, maybe there would be at least one reason why I’d want to go back to this year.
Let me explain further by sharing the dream.
In the dream, I was walking the grounds of all the schools I went to growing up. My high school, middle school, intermediate school, and elementary school were all on the same property, so you could walk between them. In the dream, I was walking to and by each of them, almost like I was walking through the first 18 years of my life.
And I was crying.
I was crying as I remembered certain memories I’d made at each school and wished I could go back for a day to experience them again.
Now, quick pause. In real life, if you asked me if I wanted to go back to my high school days, I would have said (similar to above) hell no! Nothing would make me want to relive the torture of high school!
So why was I crying about it in my dream and wishing I could go back there?
The reason didn’t hit me until I woke up and reflected on it.
I was upset in my dream because I wanted to go back to a time when I saw my best friends every day and got to talk to them, laugh with them, be silly and carefree with them. I wanted to speak to my favorite teachers again who helped me grow my confidence and made me believe in myself and my abilities. I wanted to be that young again. I wanted to have recess and dedicated nap times again like in kindergarten. In the dream, I couldn’t believe how that time in my life was over (even though it’s been over for ten-plus years now).
Admittedly, I woke up feeling a little confused. As I said before, I’d never be crying about going back to my school days in real life, particularly high school.
But I realized I’ve felt that way because all this time, I’ve only been remembering the bad parts of my school days and what made it feel torturous. I’ve only been remembering why I wanted to hurry up and get it all over with. I don’t want to go back to the mean girls, to the rude comments about my health, to the awkwardness, to the stress about tests and grades and messing up the whole trajectory of my life if I flunked one test. (I failed an AP bio test once so miserably I thought my life was over.)
I haven’t been focusing my memory of the time on any of the good parts. Because there were plenty of good parts mixed in with the bad. Football games. Study hall shenanigans. Art class. Morning walks before homeroom. Middle school dances. Fun gym class games. Field days. Field trips. Pizza Fridays.
And in my dream, I was missing all those good things that I didn’t have anymore. I’ll tell you, what I wouldn’t give now to be able to see my best friends every single day again and to see the ones I’ve lost touch with since graduating that I miss. I’ll never be that young again and full of endless energy to run around on the playground with for an hour. And I don’t know what happened to many of my teachers who encouraged me. I hope they’re well.
This all brings me back to my original sentence in this blog post.
Someday, you will want to be exactly where you are.
Even if you can’t see a reason why right now because you’re in the thick of a hard time, there is likely at least one. (I didn’t see a reason at all until I had this dream and reflected on it.)
But even though I’ve been struggling a lot with my health and desperate to leave this chapter behind me, there are things in my life right now that I won’t always have.
The biggest thing I can think of is my parents. I’m getting older, so that means my parents are getting older, too. I know at some point in my life, I’ll have to live without them. How lucky I am to still have them alive and in my life today! One day, I’ll wish I could pick up the phone and call my mom to tell her everything on my mind. One day, I’ll wish I could ask my dad for advice about work or what that noise is my car is making.
There are other things, too. Like how someday — one way or another — we’ll have kids and a family, and I won’t have as much quiet time for myself as I do right now. That hour in the morning that I love using to read or slowly wake up? Yeah, probably won’t have that anymore once kids come into the picture, so I should enjoy it now! Also, my husband and I both work remotely right now and it’s awesome that we get to be work-from-home buddies. It might not always be that way.
If you’re struggling to think of anything, try this: Imagine your life 10, 20, 30, maybe even 50 years from now. What’s something you have now that future you might not?
Whatever that thing is, and it can be more than one thing, grab it and hold on tight to it! Embrace it fully. Enjoy every bit of it. Let it be a light that helps you appreciate something about where you are right now in life. Let it help you cope with whatever challenge or obstacle is weighing you down, whether it’s with your health or another area of your life.
I hope this perspective helps you find a glimmer of contentment during a difficult time like it has for me.
XO,
Laurie
