22 Dreams

When I wrote that title I had a brief moment of thought that said, wait am I really 22? When I was younger I some pretty big dreams. Singer, writer, elephant trainer, you name it, I wanted it. And I, in my naivety, was so convinced that I would achieve this. At the grand old age of 'adulthood' I would have achieved my dreams and be this big success with the perfect life where nothing could do wrong. Little did I realise, life isn't quite like that.

Especially in this world we are under such a pressure to succeed. In a climate where the likelihood of me being able to buy a house is slim, the likelihood that I will never be able to pay off my student loans and the chance that I will be dried up before I've even had a chance to have babies, all because we spend all our lives working and dreaming for something we cannot possibly hope to achieve. 

That's not to say there's anything wrong with having dreams and by god you have to dream or what's the point at all. Now let's be clear here, I'm not talking about those 'dream big and you will achieve big' motivational quotes that adorn the slate signs and quirky a4 posters of your local hipster cafe. The 'will' in a sparkling gold that almost hints that having those dreams isn't a dream at all but a promise that will inevitably come. Let's please stop with those please? 

I'm talking about the problem of dreaming big and actually achieving big. At school I dreamed of being a successful singer with a hit record by the time I was 18. At university I dreamed of being a successful blogger with a cute fashion line featured in the glossy pages of Vogue. Now I dream of being an author, a writer, with my books published on the shelves of some small bookshelf in the Cotswolds. I have dreams. But it's about achieving these in where the problem lies. 

We place these ideals on a pedestal and, for the most degree, will not achieve these until our later life; it's only the 'lucky' ones that get this in their young age. The bloggers who we admire with their fabulous lives and even better holidays. We don't see the, possibly literal, blood sweat and tears it took to get there and there in is the problem. The glossy and fabulous life is a front cover for the hard and gritty, nail biting work that comes behind it.

Success is not a thing that is achieved in an instant and it's only now that I begin to realise this. Tackling a full time job, house move, relationship and social life as well as finding the time to write is basically impossible because after all I'm not Wonder Woman and nor do I have a time turner like Hermione Granger. 

When I had dreams as a young girl, I didn't see the work. I saw only the glossy front cover. The lives that the singers had with their clothes, holidays, fame and fortune. I didn't see the constant meetings, the press events and the late nights up writing music that may not even reach #99 in the charts.

And now when I write this in the spare 3 hours that I have on my evening train to London I think, when will I next have the time to write? When do I write my blog? When do I read that book that I've had on my bedside table since February? The balance of life gets in the way of achieving those dreams that we so desperately desire. Yet there has to be a point when that becomes okay.

I have to earn money to pay my bills. I have to pack up my home ready to move. I have to keep the balance between work and private where the personal space is my sanctity. I have to prioritise living a life over casting all that aside just to write a couple of words that one day I'll put on a memory stick only for it to get lost on the bus. 

Life is okay. Dreams are okay. And we have to reach a space where having goals is okay, having dreams is okay but there's also life and living and existing with happiness that must take priority. Because after all, if you cant LIVE big, what's the point of dreaming at all?