Second Chance Dreams

A friend of mine posed a question: "If we had a second chance at a dream, what would it be? " Hmmm…A second chance at a dream. Some people would pay big money to get another chance at something.  This question got  me to thinking about all the dreams that I tossed by the way side when I was trying to pick a career as a young and impressionable adult so many years a go.

Dream #1:

I wanted to be an Airline Stewardess. I thought it would be wonderful to travel the world and be exposed to foreign cultures. It would be day in and day out excitement, and would add dimension to my small town up bringing and state of mind. Then suddenly out of know where, a light clicked in my brain. I get motions sickness. And not the, oh well, take a little ginger and you will be fine sort of motion sickness. The sort  of motion sickness that has me trying to find a happy place between despair and nausea with out losing my stomach contents like luggage from a delayed flight.  It doesn’t matter how far I fly, my stomach believes that the entire International Chinese Acrobatic Circus is traveling in its lining. I could only imagine trying to offer some delicious refreshing beverage as I slowly turn green right before the passengers eyes.  It would be a magic trick.  What a fabulous slight of hand that I would have concerning a barf bag and how it got full with everyone watching and no one actually seeing.  I do not want a second chance at this dream.  It would only end in jet lag and stomach acid. 

          Dream #2

I wanted to be a Massage Therapist. I thought it would be fulfilling to be able to assist people with rehabilitating after a serious injury. Unfortunately I realized right away that there are some serious perverts out there that would constantly ask for a “Happy Ending” at the end of any sort of therapy session. Message Therapy has a bad rap of having a boudoir back ground, that I don't think my inner adult would be able to cope with. I am pretty sure that my inner smart mouth teenager would have a field day though.   There are only so many way that I could come up ways to describe genitalia (twig& berries, Sausage & Meatballs etc.) and I do not need to be educated in additional euphemisms. I realized that what I really wanted was to be able to help people without having my profession always be the nudge nudge wink wink sort of thing that the juvenile in me would snicker at when the adult me had a drink or two.  I do not want a second chance at this dream. It would only end in bruised egos. 

        Dream #3

I wanted to be a Nurse.  I thought that it would be thrilling to be an every day hero that would patch up people and send them on their merry way. I would give lolly pops  to all the cute kids that had inoculation shots.   Inoculation shots made me think about how I act when I have to have any sort of shots.  I am not all that pleasant. I whimper and whine and get really snippy with the nurse. At the end I am miffed that that I am never offered a lolly pop and a cool band aid, because I am adult.  Also not only would I have to do injections, I would would have to draw blood. When I was a child the poor nurse drawing my  blood is morphed in my mind into a blood sucking vampire, a daughter or son of darkness.   I do not want a  second chance at this dream. I do not want to feel like I am a blood sucking vampire  at the end of the day with out any of the perks of being a blood sucking vampire.

          Dream #4

I wanted to be a EMT. I thought that it would be awesome to swoop in and save lives every day. I think that I am supremely awesome under pressure and would be able to handle the every day drama that could have. And then I started to think about all the highway accidents out there.  I would have to see horrible horrible things that would never leave the my brain. Things that have been seen can not become unseen. I would have to keep my sanity knowing which ways a bone can come out of the body and  still keep my sanity. No. I do not think that I would be good under that sort of pressure.  I think that I would be crushed if some one were to die on my shift. I think that I would take every loss way to personally, and if I ever had to work on some one that I knew, it would make it ten times worse.   I do not want a second chance at this dream. It would only end in tears.

         Dream #5

I wanted to be a Mortician.  I have a lack of skills with pain, violence and heart  ache. Logically it would be much simpler if I worked with people that would not be able to argue back. I could have a one sided conversation with them, much like I do with my cats and my day would be cool. Yeah. There are a lot worse things then not arguing back at you.  The dead are probably pretty tame, it is the living you have to watch out for.  The idea of having to talk to some one that is grieving unsettles my stomach. I don't have to try too hard to imagine that I would offend someone by talking, since I don't have the greatest amount of tact. I am sure that a game of Boxers or Briefs would be very much out of place at a funeral.  I do not want a second chance at this dream. I do not want to be buried alive by grieving non-dead. 

  I guess the moral of the story is that it is okay if dreams don't work out. It sometimes is for the best. It may not seem that way at the time, because a broken dream is nothing to laugh at. In fact it normally causes quite a few tears.  I may not have one of those glamours jobs that I once dreamed about, but that is okay. Not having that glamour has made room for other dreams and helped me realize what is important to me in my life. Even though I  work hard at my career and spend most of my life working at it, it does not mean that has to be my entire life. My life can be what ever I make of it. A broken dream is just a stepping stone to a path less traveled.