The dream seemed ordinary as it unfolded, and yet there was that odd echo that made it feel weighty somehow. A domestic scene where kids are coming home in the evening, excited by their day, complaining about dirty clothes… being kids. The one girl really struck me as one of those kids that is just so present that you can feel the universe bending around them… their gravity just make you want to be around them. I realized I was proud of this kid… MY kid. But one of the ironies of my life has been making choices to fit a family I then failed to come up with. This sweet kid is a ghost of what might have been.

She apparently had just discovered an affinity with boating (or archery, or painting… honestly the specific thing eludes me) and declared “I, AM a boater!” A strong, matter-of-fact tone of voice that said “Yep, I came, I saw, and I lived it!” She says things like this all the time it seems, eyes wide with appreciation for this world of opportunities constantly opening before her. That’s exactly the sort of confident take on life I wish I’d always had. With those powers, this could have been a dream about a real kid, not this ghost I’ve realized I’m so very proud of.

And so I woke up thinking about this girl (there was a boy too… he was younger and complaining that his uniform was dirty; I’m sure he’s a good kid too, but in these dreams you don’t control the camera, right? I KNOW he just didn’t put it in the laundry like he’s been told a thousand times!). I wasn’t sad or even empty… I really hadn’t even parsed the significance of this echo… maybe I still haven’t completely. And yet, I did remember a thought I’d had earlier in the day: maybe I should re-start that writing habit I’d been struggling with? And then…

Aren’t all of those ideas I had but never wrote down like these ghostly “might have been” children? How many times did I throw a song away because it was feeling maudlin? How many story ideas did I have where I thought “That would be a great plot, someone should write that!”? Not that I need maudlin songs, or half baked novels, but I can just work on it. Make it better. Make it into something that will make my heart warm when I say “Yes… that’s my girl right there!”