I (Don't) Have a Dream

Lately, I'm finding the treadmill and its running-to-nowhere metaphor a little too close to home.

For two weeks now I've stepped onto the belt, located Inside Edition, TMZ or another high-quality celebrity news show, increased the speed to my new target, dialed up On-the-Go playlist 10 (a choice blend of hardcore, classic rap, thrash metal and Brit rock) and attempted to hit the shit out of it. And every night, the same thing happens. About fifteen minutes in I decrease the speed and start walking. It happens before my mind even begins to waiver and the usual emotional walls pile up, brick on brick, burying me beneath them. Body trumps mind. Suddenly, I'm just walking. To nowhere.

I spent a lot of last week in a self-loathing stupor. After each workout I'd go a few rounds with my inner dominatrix and her humiliation stick, trying to figure out why I'm such an unaccomplished candy-ass. Emotional S & M always seems to work for me. After a bit of thrashing and trashing, I actually dug up a notion of value down there in the self-flaggelation swamp: I don't have any reason to run. Not really. Now, don't get me wrong, running feels good. In a bad way. And my secret Mistress Midnight loves that. Its payoff is so concrete -- the hurt to reward ratio a fine, exquisite line I'm constantly walking across on tiptoe. And for a time, its reliable drone and incessant pounding was good enough to keep me fighting the throb and ache. But I needed a carrot to chase. In November I found and trained for a race and that effort, the idea of finishing something in motion, became bigger than me. Seeing it loom there in distance made me want it in my hands to hold and feel the weight of and pocket forever. That image, the finish line, got me into running pants in the middle of a hoarde of healthy runners headed to the end.

I had a thing. A dream. I had a dream. Now I don't and I'm running to run. Well, really, I'm walking. And I'm not getting anywhere.

I think this might be what's happening in my off-the-belt life too. I haven't been able to figure out why I feel so plagued by sameness. There's plenty of change afoot but I can't shake the weight of routine. My mom asked me recently what my dream was. It feels cheeseball just writing a thing like that. But truthfully? I couldn't really answer with any authority. I told her I just wanted to eek out a living doing something I like, maybe raise a few kids and that's it.

What has happened that I don't have a dream? That's a disaster. Everyone wants to make a living doing something they like. That's not a dream. That's lowballing it because I a.) think I can't ask for more b.) don't think I'm up to it or c.) don't think it'll really happen so what's the fucking point? A dream is way bigger than making a living doing something I like. That's why it's called a dream instead of a potential outcome. A dream is what got me out of bed every day while I was washing dishes at Taco Bell in 1994. I saw New York City ablaze in my mind every minute of every day and I dreamed of being here. Hard.

I want to go one step further, though. I think it's important to posess a dream but a dream in and of itself is not enough. I think we should all be dreaming extravagantly. Otherwise, what's the incentive, really? Why fight for a potential outcome? Fights, like running, are only worth the throb and ache if the payoff is sensational. Even just the idea of extravagant dreaming teems with life and intensity. An extravagant dream is something you can adorn yourself with, touch and smell and hold like the estate jewel it is.

I'm not sure what my extravagant dream is yet because I've become too good at undoing dreams before they begin to float. But I'm sure when it starts to well up inside me it'll be ruby encrusted, fluid in organza and silk, shimmering like sunlight on rippling waves. Extravagant. And you can bet when I finally know it, I'll run my ass off to grab it.