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There was a moment when it all seemed real to me, once long ago when my life still had a recognizable course, an easily visible plan that I meant to follow. How simple it all seemed back then, in that golden time, before the changes came. I was--and I admit it now--an innocent. Completely unprepared for the realities of life, the many unforeseen occurences that can throw a wrench into the cogwheel of even the most meticulously detailed plans. It's all smoke and mirrors really, when you think about it--what better way to describe the tenuous fragility of the hopes and dreams that we hold dearest to our hearts?
Hopes and dreams. It's ironic, really. It always seemed clear to me what I was going to be in life, what I was going to accomplish. What I hoped to accomplish. I'm a scientist by nature--I have one of those minds that cannot stop asking the eternal "Why?", much to the consternation of those around me. But it's what I am; it's who I am. It's who I always wanted to be. I never made any apologies for it, and I certainly never did anything to try to change it.
It's strange how my life seems to have changed without changing the core of who I am inside. Is that even possible? I suppose it is. At heart, I'm still the same irrepressible child-genius who faces the universe head-on, asking his interminable "Why, why, why?" of the cosmos and demanding the answers as if it were his due. If you think about it, nothing, really, has changed at all. And yet everything has changed.
Because I'm not a scientist anymore. Not the way I'd hoped to be. I'm not a scientist, and that's what I always saw myself as, what I always wanted to be. I gave that up, pushed it aside, traded it in for something that means even more to me than this hope, this dream, that I've been cultivating since I was a very young boy. Strange. How could anything take precedence over a life's dream? How can anything take the place of that in my heart, in my hopes?
Hope. Is that what I traded my dream for? It hardly seems possible. I've always dealt in the tangible, in the touchable, in those things that can be readily quantified and organized and stored away in neat little boxes inside a storehouse, a museum, a heart. I've lived my life inside those neat little boxes, defined my existence by the parameters that I so rigidly set up around me.
Like the fences I had set up around my heart. I've always pictured them as mile-high barriers made of brick and mortar, with flashing neon signs set over them in bright blinking color saying "No trespassing--violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." My heart has always been off-limits to those that I've associated myself with, even in the rare emotionally intimate relationships that I've cultivated. I'm all for a good fling now and again--I am human, after all--but that's where it has always ended for me. Friends, I can do without a hitch, without a problem, and I've been told over and over again how loyal I am, how trustworthy I am, and how easily I worm my way into the plans and patterns and rituals that make up the day- to-day courses of other people's lives.
But there's no real pressure inherent in being a friend. Friends come and go all the time, pass into and out of our lives with the regularity of a summer storm, taking parts of ourselves when they go, leaving parts of themselves behind. That's the way it is with friends. That's the way it's supposed to be. No pressure, no promises. No risk.
When did that change for me? When did this one friend work his way so completely into my life and my heart? Despite the barriers I had raised, the fences that have been successful in keeping everyone else at arm's distance since the day I was born? It's like he worked his way in underneath my defences when I wasn't looking, and by the time I actually noticed that he was there, it was already too late for me.
Because we're not just friends anymore.
I can admit that now, here, in the privacy of my thoughts.
You don't trash a life's dream for a friend. Life just doesn't work that way. Dreams don't work that way. They're tenacious things, fighting tooth and claw to see themselves born into the world. A dream is a powerful, vicious, and life-altering thing. Dreams demand obedience, fealty, against odds, against reason. They demand to be born. And there is nothing, nothing in the world that is more difficult to kill than a half-born dream.
And yet mine died. Mine died with nary a whisper, and now I'm still not sure exactly how it happened. How could it happen like that? I gave up everything--everything!--and I'm still not sure exactly what I traded it all for.
Wait a minute. Maybe that's where my answer is. Maybe that's the key I was looking for. What can kill a dream? Despair, hopelessness, lack of faith--all true, but I'm not suffering from any of those things. I've never had a problem with faith. So what, then?
Perhaps a dream can kill another dream, and take its place. Now that's a thought. Because I don't feel empty now--and I should, after throwing away everything I've worked so hard for, everything I've fought so hard for. I'm not a scientist anymore. Not the way I wanted to be, the way I planned to be, the way I ... hoped to be.
And yet I don't feel like I've lost a dream. In fact, I feel like I've found one.
Jim really is a beautiful person. He's strong inside, and he believes in me, in what I did, in what I can still do. And he managed to get past my defences, my walls, when I wasn't looking. He's a part of me now, in a way that no friend has ever been before. Because he's more than just my friend now. I can admit that, here in the privacy of my thoughts.
So what is he, then?
Silence.
I do believe I've actually shocked myself speechless. It would be funny if it wasn't so very strange. Here I am, former scientist, soon-to-be cop, one of the premier *friends* on the face of this planet (and I've had lots of practice at being friends, you know), and I can't bring myself to consciously answer the hard questions. Not that it really matters.
Because I know the answer to this one.
I know what he is to me.
Because you don't throw away a life's dream for a friend.
It's frightening to think about, but it's exhilarating, too. I've never really...loved...anyone before. I mean, sure, I love my mom, but that's an entirely different animal if you know what I mean.
I'm talking about *love*.
The forever kind.
This is really strange. There's so much to think about here, so many possibilities. I love him. Let's say it again, just to get used to the idea--I love him. There, that wasn't so hard, now was it?
And yet...
What if he doesn't feel the same? What if, in his mind, we're still only *friends*?
But that's ridiculous, really. Because a friend doesn't throw away his life's dream for you. A friend doesn't give that up for another friend, no matter how close they may be.
And maybe, just maybe, I've worked my way underneath his defenses, too.
It feels odd to smile, after everything that's happened today. I shouldn't be smiling--I mean, my lifelong dream of getting my Ph.D. is dead. Gone. Vanished as if it had never been.
And yet there's a new dream in its place. A stronger dream.
Funny how that works out, sometimes.
I'm going to tell him tonight that I love him. And maybe, just maybe, this dream will prove to be even more tenacious than the old one.
Because this is a dream worth fighting for. Worth sacrificing for. Because it's not just smoke and mirrors anymore.
This is my dream. This is my hope.
And I'm going to make it real.
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