So it turns out I don’t have any dreams

Not the REM type. I mean the big, bold, brassy type. The obit filler. The ‘when I grow up…’. Fodder for the great Wikipedia in the sky.

I don’t know if I’ve just never had them, or if I had one once but deleted it accidentally. Either way, for the moment, I am dreamless.

Others I know have them. Honourable, highly covetable dreams. Ones that sound when you strike them. Ones I might have stolen had I been more onto it:
•    live (and thrive) in New York city (tick and tick)
•    write a novel (tick)
•    conceive, create and publish own street mag (tick)
•    become an institution at major national broadsheet (tick)
•    edit 2011 Good Food guide (practically a tick – c’mon Tors, you know Simon Thomsen loves your work, and if he ever let you at it you’d be all over it)

Others are well out of my league. The profile of a facebook ‘friend’ calmly voices her aspiration to ‘work in Humanitarian Emergencies’ (her capitals), given her interest in ‘Infectious Disease Medicine and International Public Health, Pediatrics, Trauma and Surgery.’ In other words: save the world.

It’s partly my own fault. I have a feeling that when they were handing out the life goals I politely averted my eyes. Deep within me, implanted splinter-under-fingernails-like, is the belief that (and here’s where it gets ugly) dreams are for ‘others’.

The internal rationalisation goes something like this: to boldly declare an ambition, you must be pretty up yourself. Right? How could you put it out there if you didn’t believe, with an unfaltering fullness of heart, that you could achieve it?  How could you (does one?) truly believe in yourself?

And who are these people with the aspirations? Surely for the truly gifted, the life fulfilled finds us, not the other way around. To strive for something (something everyone knows! *gasp*) - how dreadfully common! How horribly impolite! Did no one ever tell you it’s rude to be ambitious, siiiinnnnnful to be proud?
What are you trying to make up for?
Did your teachers not approve of you?
Did your friends not support you?
Did your parents not love you?



I know it makes no sense. I know. And I know it’s not ‘modesty’. I know it’s safety and cowardice instead. I’m studying law and I like it. My hunch though is that my claim that it’s ‘just a hobby’ is indicative of - not a genuine disinterest in practicing, but – a worry that (if I ever tried) I’d never pass the bar.

We went to pre-marriage counselling on the weekend - just one on a list of 100 I-do to-dos. We went to arm ourselves against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (should they ever appear on our horizon). Seven hours later we left, dirty, covered in a film of stale sweat previously embedded in other people’s laundry.

The only remedies: scalding water, cotton, sheepskin, a drive and a six-pack of little creatures. We took diavola and rosso pomodoro, parked the car as close to the lights on water as possible*, and analysed the day. It was a very Dee Why 2001, teen-movie moment. John and Julie would have approved. They recommend time put aside each week to discuss how you’re tracking against each of your life goals (!!)

And here’s where it all fell down. I don’t have any. At least, none that truly belong only to me (as opposed to ‘us’).

The house, the garden, the children: that’s ‘us’.

But me?

Potentially, we theorised, the vacuum was caused only by a lack of direction:

‘Anything you choose to try, I’m sure you would succeed at. You could be brilliant. Brilliant at….’
‘….’
‘At what?’
‘at… whatever.’

No. ‘Whatever’ does not mean ‘insert career here’. There was no certainty. It was a question. Without the question mark.

‘Whatever’ is the unknown. ‘Whatever’ is the blind spot. ‘Whatever’ is the topic of this blog.

I had a blog once, at uni. A shitboxcar at blogspot.com. It was the early days, and Internet home-ownership didn’t feel so achievable back then. So it was a collective voice. We each did our bit to pay the rent. It revved - briefly, spluttered, choked and died. Flooded with hormones as we tried to out-whimsy each other, eventually expiring. Some lingering, asthmatic, broken-html death.

Many good things were born from the ashes of shitboxcar. And, necessarily, this is also one of its offspring. But good or bad? We don’t yet know.

Brilliant at whatever:

An exercise in the navigation of blind spots (my own), a little lovin for the right hemisphere, and the response to a request that didn’t have to be made thrice.

[If it’s ugly, blame Alice. And if we talk about this in real life, make sure we’re drunk.]



* Memo to all Sydney councils – Please provide more places to park with a view.
Best regards,
Alex