green

Not yet. What if the answer I am to end up with, at the end of an extravagant journey, is “not yet”? What if I, an admittedly impatient—at times, I’m afraid, impulsive—individual, am to come to end of orientation with the realization that I must turn down what was such an invigorating prospect to me?
When all is said and done, I near the end of this trip suspecting that the worth of it was in the family time that it allowed, more so than the academic experience itself. Mind you, I do still believe that the ideas I have are intended to result in some form of higher academic pursuit: I just cannot help but hope that this can happen in a way that does not take away the financial freedom acquired by living “outside the box,” in a sense. Up to this point, we have [previously independently and, now, together] avoided the normal sorts of financial obligations that come from school, home, or other debt; consequently, we have been able to pursue work that does not provide the “normal” sort of compensation.
So what I now realize, after a trip that combined doctoral program orientation with a family visit, is that I am not ready to give up that ability to do such family visits because all funds [plus much more than what we have :-)] are dedicated to education.
As much as I wanted to pursue this, and as much as it invigorated the mental synapses, I suspect that a bit of time will allow for a creative inspiration as to how this dream might be pursued in a way that fits us—the odd birds that we are. Funny thing, that word: fits. It occurs to me that this words has made its way into my vocabulary in a sort of thematic manner; in different seasons of my life, different fits have come . . . “if the shoe fits” . . . “a bun doesn’t fit in a burkha” . . . perhaps, now, “if the dream fits?”
Yes, I’m afraid that a part of life might be realizing that sometimes a dream has to die. Or maybe it is not exactly a death: maybe it is more of a releasing. Didn’t the poet warn “hold fast to dreams/for if dreams die . . .”? It may feel like a death, in that it is no longer held to oneself. But the truth is that it has been let go into the unknown future. Like a dove sent ahead to scope out the territory, it seeks out the growth that we cannot yet grasp hold of. Then, when the time is right, it returns to us, now a green branch of hope carried back from a shining future. So the brightness beckons us forward once again, towards a dream reborn into something better . . .