A Dream Achieved

What happens to a dream deferred, wrote Langston Hughes for all of the freshmen English students in Ohio to ponder. Does it fester? Does it burn? I remember (vaguely) learning this poem at age fourteen. And I remember years and years of teaching it to youth who never doubted that their dreams would certainly come true.

Good questions, I think. I remember always feeling so bad for the speaker. What if somebody stood in the way of his dreams? What if he never followed his passion or achieved his ultimate desires? But now I have a new question. What if he did?

What happens to a dream achieved? And likewise the dreamer? What does it mean to let loose, to reach for it, to get what you have been hoping for? I think it scares the hell out of me. Then what? What comes next? And after that?

I don’t think I’m alone in my fear. I think that is why the world is trapped on the couch watching Survivor and Seinfeld re-runs. I don’t think it is so much that we are afraid to fail as that we are afraid to succeed. Perhaps people don’t even dream anymore because then we would have something new to avoid. Better to just live vicariously through awkward singers and dancers, and even worse, runway models.

What if? What if my dreams came true? Then where would I be? Then I might have to create a new goal. Take a step (or a 5K jog) outside my comfort zone. Find something new to complain about.

We love our complacency because it is comfortable. And it does not reject us. Sometimes chasing dreams leaves us with mud on our coats and doors slammed in our faces. It makes us doubt who we are. It makes us doubt who are friends are and what our talents are.

I hate to get preachy, but really. Why don’t I just step up and hit one out of the park? Because I am scared. There are too many heavy loads for me. I feel trapped before I even start. But why?

For instance, I’ve carried around twenty or thirty extra pounds for my whole adult life. Do I really love butter that much that I can’t strive to be the best that I can physically? Do Oreos truly speak to my soul?

Or how about my (insert participle here) teaching, writing, parenting, and learning inertia? Would it be so hard to get off the couch and sign up for a class or play checkers with my kids or make a dynamite syllabus? Apparently, the answer is yes.

I end up disagreeing pretty vehemently with Hughes at the end of his piece. Does it explode? Nope. A dream deferred? What happens to that is WORSE than an explosion. A trickling, a drizzling, a fading maybe, but there is not enough passion for an explosion.

Fading is good for sunsets at the end of the day. Trickling is good for bubbling brooks traversing tiny falls. But these are not good enough for me. What happens to a dream achieved? We’ll just have to see about that.