It's Official: I'm a Dreamer

Esther Blodgett: Some day you won't laugh at me! I'm going out and have a real life! I'm gonna be somebody!

Esther Blodgett: I'm going out there and BE somebody!!

Grandmother Lettie: Esther, everyone in this world who has ever dreamed about better things has been laughed at, don't you know that? But there's a difference between dreaming and doing. The dreamers just sit around and moon about how wonderful it would be if only things were different. And the years roll on and by and by they grow and they forget everything, even about their dreams. Oh yes, you want to be somebody, but you want it to be easy.

I've taken a trip down memory lane today. I read up on an old classmate who not only used her beauty to win pageants and land a TV gig, but is now the inventor of some exercise gizmo on the Home Shopping Channel. I e-mailed and received a response from an old crush from junior high days, who, if fate had not dealt me a blow, would've been my first boyfriend and learned he is a successful businessman who unfortunately became a Republican. (Money will do that to ya, I hear.) And if that wasn't enough, I learned that a dear friend from high school and college has a lucrative job public relations.

Wait a minute. Cut scene. What happened to me? Wasn't I supposed to be on some sort of track like this?

Now, before you think that last question was all too full of self-importance hear me out, people. You gotta understand that a girl living in a small rural Appalachia town with nothing remotely resembling civilization within 80 miles of her, that I had big dreams. Dreams of grandeur, sure, but out of those dreams I thought surely something remotely successful would come to fruition. Even if I didn't become the next Nancy Drew, Mary Lou Retton, or Hannah Storm , then maybe I'd be a UN translator, or National Geographic photographer. That's what I imagined--that is, until life gave me a swift punch. And no, I'm not going to throw a pity party for myself, although I have bought the decorations and invitations for such a fete--just keep postponing the official date.

It's just....You see....I just really had hoped for a different outcome for myself thus far--professionally speaking, that is. I got my Prince Charming, my partner in crime, my better half. And what an extraordinary better half he is! (If only everyone could see what I see in him. How intelligent, sensitive, and extremely talented he is.) He, too, is a dreamer, and he dreamed of better things for himself professionally. (Maybe that's why we are so compatible?)

I worked hard, for a long time, and when I stumbled, due in part to unforeseen circumstances, I got back up again, but only to stumble again. Thereafter I stood back up but each time one stands back up one either gets weaker or stronger. I think I got weaker. So that now as I recently got back up again I just wanna say, "Am I ever gonna be somebody? You know, like I always wanted to be?