Primary School Dreaming

I vividly remember sitting down with my best friend at lunch time with our matchbox cars that we were zooming around in the dirt in the playground. I was 8 years old.

I remember turning to him and saying that, when we grow up, we aren’t going to have Matchbox cars anymore. We are going to have the real versions of these cars and we are going to live in a bachelor pad and we can park our cars in the driveway.

Back then, that was the holy grail for me: to own my own car and to live in my own place. It seems that back then I was striving for independence and ownership. I wanted to say to the world that these objects are mine and I’m free to be and go wherever I please.

What I wasn’t dreaming about was how I was going to get there. I only focused on the outcome and knew I’d do whatever it takes to get there.

I reached that goal this year. Except it isn’t my dream anymore.

My dreams have changed as my life has changed. To be honest I’d completely forgotten about it until today when it hit me like a rock out of nowhere. I own my own car (although it’s not the Ferrari that I was skidding around in back at primary school) and I park it in a garage at my place every night.

Something that hasn’t changed since that day though, is my ability to dream. The ability to envisage myself being somewhere in the future and then working hard to make it happen. Although I’ve since moved cities and don’t have contact with that boy anymore, there’s a little part of me that hopes that he also reached his childhood dream of independence and freedom.

It’s important to have dreams but it’s important to remember that our dreams will change as our life changes. New people will come into our lives and change our dreams and people we thought would be with us forever, will vanish from our lives.

What’s important to remember is to never stop dreaming because, regardless of the outcome and whether or not you reach it, the fact that you’re dreaming means you’re always striving for something more. So I’ll continue to keep dreaming, researching, changing direction, going off the beaten track and adapting to my surroundings. Will you?