From Europe with Love

When I hear the rain, I can’t help but think in a British accent and wonder what it might be like to watch the water slide down a café window in a classic metropolitan downtown somewhere in Europe. 

Photo from Flickr

During those wet afternoons, I wonder what my mother is doing, how my grandmother lived when she was my age, and if I will ever be a wife. The melancholy brings out the questions that live in a coffee shop atmosphere: questions about another life. I never want to live wishing for another life. But it’s so easy for a dreamer to be trapped in a dream.

A dream is an alternate reality that is desired above the current circumstance. It’s driving a Ford and wishing for a Ferrari. It’s living at home and wishing for independence in a bustling city. It’s drinking tap water and wishing for Pellegrino. A dream is a wasting today for the promise of tomorrow.

Today I was in San Francisco. As we drove by row houses, I created a life for myself. I was living in the brick house with the long balcony full of fauna. My fridge was stocked with food from the local farmer’s market, and my furniture was second-hand, trendy from the thrift store on Magnolia Lane. My identity took root in my wardrobe, and I was what they call fashionable. The people in my life were always there for me, and we threw parties and went out together.  There was nothing inherently wrong about that life, but none of it was true. Instead, I was a passenger in my life, absently considering pushing the eject button.

We dream because we doubt the goodness of today. We don’t see the value in the people we are with, the job we are doing, or the book we ought to be reading. We are blinded with visions of another story. What is happening in our story while we want a different one? I am so tired of pressing my nose up against the glass of my life. I don’t want to live in a dream.

What purpose is there when the only vision we have is for ourselves? Where is our focus? What are we really living for?