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Daydreams clash with practical contraints

March 14, 2008

By: Grace Baranowski <gbaranowski@hilite.org>

I doubt that I’m unique among girls, just because I wish for many things. I wish to sashay down the red carpet in a jaw-droppingly gorgeous gown. I wish to own my own designer business in some fashionable New York storefront. I wish to live in Europe as a writer, scribbling away in a cramped apartment adorned only with fresh-cut wild roses.

Yes, those are the things for which I wish. Now, without any hint of a wish, examine my day-to-day routine.

I’m a dedicated student, show choir performer, editor, volunteer. I complete my NHS hours on time. I do my homework and study for all tests. I have yet to contract senioritis. I lead processionals and recessionals in church as a crucifer. Basically, I fill all requirements of the all-around Good Kid.
But I tend to have this romantic, idealistic streak that doesn’t match my own reality. After spending hours at school, whether in the classroom, the library or the performing arts wing, some part of me still yearns for something vaguely in the distance. I find myself humming a song from the Accents competition set, “There’s gotta be something better than this.”

It’s not that I’m not happy with my life. I truly am. I’m proud of all that I’ve accomplished and aware that I’m blessed with so many advantages that others might not have. It’s just that my life has been so regimentally “perfect” that I yearn to escape its boundaries.

I wish to travel the world, to live with nomadic tribes and swear off material possessions and then become a fashionable socialite obsessed with Valentino. I wish to be a novelist or a painter. I wish to spend whole days in dreamy cottages by the sea with my own writing and sketching studio as a separate room: walls painted sky blue, furnished with knick-knacks from my world travels. I want to live in the past, the present and the future simultaneously.

But I see in my future a respectable university. I see myself married by middle-age, with a brick house in suburbia. Kids will eventually add their own knick-knacks of crushed Cheerios and plastic toys. Not that there’s anything wrong with that vision. I know many people will be perfectly happy to settle into the American middle class and become well-dispositioned tax-paying household units.

I’m sure that if you wanted to, you say, you could drop all that you’ve accomplished and learned just to follow some lark of a fancy. But that’s the thing. At (almost) 18, I’ve already invested so much that I’m set in my ways. My safety net of self-discipline has become my prison. And how would I set a goal to live a daydream life so completely void of concrete goals? The thing is—I can’t. I can’t say that in five years I plan to become a French poet or a Spanish flamenco dancer. I can’t say it because it’s just too out-there, too far-removed from the normality of my Carmel home.

There are just too many variables in a world built on fantastical reveries. First there’s the issue of money. How would you fund transatlantic flights and months of grocery receipts? I doubt tapping out manuscripts, a la Briony Tallis of Atonement, would contribute enough to support myself. Secondly, the expectations that society has put upon me as a top-performing student cannot be escaped. The uproar of a girl setting out to sea for a grand adventure is unheard of in such a digitalized, organized, sanitized world. Thirdly, the career future of a bonified dreamer is slim to none. Ever heard of that old joke about the anthropology major from a prestigious liberal arts college? She could study all the culture she wanted, but when it came time for her to enter the Real World and get a Real Job, all she could find was a position as a cashier in the local museum.

My dreams seem too unwieldy for my own good. They’re too grandiose and become fodder for family jokes. They seem to be pleasant diversions during less-than-engaging moments, but no more than that.

I simply ask myself when or even how I could abandon all that I’ve amassed—or even if I’d be strong enough to put all of this beside me to pursue my most fantastic daydream. Until then, I ask, “How long will it be until reality matches reverie?” Grace is a managing editor of the HiLite. Contact her at gbaranowski@hilite.org.

Updated by ychoi · Filed Under Perspectives 

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