Livin' the Dream

I ran into an old friend the other day.

Despite living in a small town,

I hadn’t seen him in about five years.

At least.

I was talking to someone at the grocery store entrance when we spotted each other, and our encounter was brief.

Him: “Hey, you! How are you doing?!”

Me: “Awesome. And you?”

Him: “You know. Livin’ the dream.”

That was always his standard answer.

Always.

I kept talking to the person I was speaking to and never saw my old friend again in the store, but I’ve considered his “Livin’ the dream” line several times since our chance meeting.

At first, I chuckled and thought,

“That guy hasn’t changed a bit.”

He looks the same.

He sounds the same.

He responds the exact same way he responded all those years ago.

Of course, I sat with it and began the dissection. 

I considered that “Livin’ the dream” may simply be his “I’m well” equivalent.

Maybe he’s been saying it for so long he doesn’t even think about the words anymore.

But what if there’s more to it than that?

What if he really is livin’ the dream?

Am I?

Are you?

After careful consideration, I think my old friend may be onto something.

I spend a lot of time looking for the extraordinary in the ordinary.

For the Divine in the Daily.

It’s my self-proclaimed superpower.

But maybe I’ve missed something.

Some of the ordinary things I’m so grateful for weren’t always ordinary to me.

Once, I dreamed about them.

Not the things, really.

Younger me didn’t dream about a particular house or the things I would someday put inside it.

She dreamed of a home.

Big difference.

She dreamed of stability.

And somewhere along the way, I got it.

Not all of it, of course.

Who gets everything they dreamed of?

But...

My children are healthy and happy.

My prayer life continues to grow.

I think my husband still likes to hang out with me.

I have meaningful friendships.

I think we expect dreams to feel like dreams when they come true.

We expect some great sense of arrival.

Maybe even a brass band preceding them.

(I am from New Orleans, after all.)

At the very least, shouldn’t there be an announcement?

Here it is.

You made it.

This is the life you hoped for.

But that’s not really what happens, is it?

A marriage becomes decades.

Friendships endure.

Routines form.

Prayers deepen.

No brass band.

No announcement.

Life just keeps life-ing. 

And somewhere in all that ordinary living, some of the things we once hoped for, no, dreamed about, simply became the things we have. 

The home we longed for becomes the place where something always needs cleaning, fixing, washing, folding, or putting away.

Familiarity isn’t ingratitude.

At least, I hope it isn’t.

What if the ordinary isn’t always hiding something extraordinary?

Sometimes the ordinary is the dream we dreamt.

Of course, not every part of life is a dream come true.

But maybe we’re living parts of it. 

Maybe we can be standing right in the middle of an answered prayer while still praying desperately for something else.

Hmmm.

The dream doesn’t always announce its arrival.

Sometimes it arrives as a Tuesday morning.

A familiar voice on the phone.

Someone beside you on the sofa.

A place you call home.

A prayer you no longer have to pray.

And little by little, it becomes so familiar that we stop calling it a dream.

We just call it life.

Maybe my old friend has known that all along.

Or maybe he’s just been flippantly saying the same thing a million times.

Either way, I’m glad I ran into him.

Because the next time someone asks how I’m doing, I think I have a new answer.

I probably won’t say it.

But I’ll feel it.

I’m livin’ the dream.