I’ve found myself thinking lately about the dreams that live within the heart. I fight for dreams realized, yet wonder just
like everyone else if they should be given up for a different road that could grow into a new dream. Within my deepest longings, I’ve always longed to live by the warmest of seas…and walk barefoot 12 months of the year. I also dreamed of an amazing and fulfilling love. Today, I’m here in Gothenburg, Sweden…an amazing city near a chilly sea. It is for love that I’m here.
As I try to imagine my future, I am struck with how dreams evolve…and how things like love and family can reshape destiny. The balance of compromise and dreams realized is an art to say the least.
My mind tosses between my love for a dream and the call of reality. Today, I wandered into a tiny coffee shop called the Mahogany…it’s a famous spot with amazing coffee drinks and fresh pastries. Behind the desk was a man from Washington D.C. He was excited to hear that I am from California and shared with me how he misses his hometown and followed love to Gothenburg. “I miss my home,” he said with emotion-filled eyes. “I’m just not sure how things will shape up.” Now with a child and a Swedish wife, he’s in a beautiful place, but lives between an amazing town and the place he calls home in his heart.
We all make decisions that lead us down a path…and sometimes our decisions split our hearts in two pieces. One piece loving a person…and the other loving a place or a cherished dream.
Yesterday I read the theory that Amelia Earhart may have survived her tragic crash and tried to make it on a small island in the pacific. Items such as a comb and compact mirror were found some time ago, along with a bit of bone thought to have belonged to a woman. DNA tests are currently being conducted. What if it were Amelia and her belongings found?
In an attempt at following her dreams, can you imagine her gazing at the stars at night on an island all alone, as warm winds swept from one end of the island to another? I wonder if she concluded that her dreams were worth the result? She could have played it safe and been strolling around the streets of Kansas or New Your City with a skirt and high heels…instead of sitting under the stars with a pair of torn trousers and only her thoughts. During the time she was praying she’d be rescued, did she dream of what life would have been if she had played it safe…or did visions of all she’d seen while flying in her plane flood her mind?….of her solo flight across the Pacific to Europe…gliding high above animal herds in Africa…or circling the majestic skyline of New York City…
Dreams and decisions can be tricky…the process confounding. How about you? Things shaping up OK?
– Jen Engevik
Project BE Bold