By C.L. Harmon

When we lose our direction, we lose more than just our way. We lose ourselves. We are tied to our dreams, and it is the part of which defines us internally. I believe the dream is who we are and not that we are someone with a dream. Our dreams are powerful when we are young. They still seem within reach, and the idea of those dreams becoming elusive has not yet become a reality.

Life, however, is a thief. As days go by, they blend into a period of time and then into a past time. Our dreams begin wandering aimlessly into our subconscious as they no longer have a place in our conscious thoughts. They are as a memory that never happened. They slip into the darkness of our psyches because we feel as though they ask too much from us.

They are in constant need of attention, never fulfilled. It becomes burdensome as it requires more and more to grow. And so we let go, but are left with this sense of abandonment that we cannot explain, yet know it’s real. We feel it always with us; something lost to us but not forgotten. Our dreams are roadmaps in life. They are the directions, not to the most wonderful experiences, but directions out of the chaos of the worst experiences.

Most of us do not think of our dreams in such a way. But do we not think of dreams as paths to betterment? Is not reaching for something out of reach just another way of removing us from the negativity that is ever close to us? We lose ourselves in the chaos because we have stopped moving away from it as it grows. Does it not seem logical that our Creator would give us a tool to escape that which destroys and consumes us? Without our dreams and the pursuit of them, we no longer define who we are but instead become the definition of those who left theirs in the dark recesses of their subconscious.