Not the kind of disappointing news that ends marriages or shortens lives. It wasn't catastrophic disappointing news. As disappointment goes, it ranks up there with a rejection of a manuscript by a publisher or the need to have a strange mole removed from a shoulder. It was a medium-sized disappointment. A blow to the ego more than anything else.
I am not going to spend this entire post lamenting this disappointment (not that I'm above wallowing). No, today's setback is just me tilting at another windmill. I set myself up for failure all the time. I engage in some kind of endeavor, convince myself that success is inevitable, and then find myself flat on my back in the mud, staring up at the stars.
I have to stop dreaming the impossible dreams. It's something I've done my whole life, and it hasn't served me well up to this point. Perhaps I simply need to ground myself in reality. I'm a decent poet. I have a not-very-important job in a medical office. I'm a contingent instructor at a university where both the administration and full-time faculty count me as pariah. I live paycheck-to-paycheck. That's reality. Dreaming is too expensive a pastime. This morning, I had to have some of my teeth drilled down by my dentist because I've been grinding them in my sleep, giving myself jaw-aches and headaches. That's what dreaming has gotten me.
So, I relinquish windmills this evening. It's time for me to embrace my truths. Maybe my teeth will stop hurting, and my bruised self-esteem will begin to heal. And that's my question for Ives this evening:
Should I stop dreaming my impossible dreams?
And the answer:
". . . Just remember, if you don't take care of business, no one else will. Do you really think God gives a shit?"
Saint Marty knows God gives a shit, but He sometimes has a pretty funny way of showing it.
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| I'm retiring my lance |
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