When I was a kid, I'd read about pirates and their buried treasures, and it seemed grand. The high seas, the gold and jewels, the pitched battles, and those maps where X marks the spot ... all combined in a glorious myth. What little boy didn't want to be a pirate at some time in his life?
Of course, the truth was much different. Their lives were short and brutal. They murdered people. They were uneducated and smelly. They had personal habits that would embarrass a rabid pig. They didn't have a heart of gold, and X never marked the spot.
So few dreams survive into adulthood. At least not in the sense that we can believe they are real. Unrelenting reality beats dreams down, mugs them in an alley, and leaves them for dead in a ditch by the side of a road. I don't know how we make it when so many of our dreams can't survive the harsh light of day. We're fairly irrational people, we humans, and somehow we muddle through our daily routines. We get up and go to work and give up our dreams or try to force them on our children. If we're miserable, we think it's nothing more than we deserve for our crime of being born.
But I hope that maybe in our heart of hearts, we still believe. Maybe in our secret fantasies, pirates sail the high seas and rescue beautiful princesses and fight the good fight against oppressive governments. Maybe we pit our wits and strength against the unforgiving storms. Maybe we stand at the bow, shouting our wild and glorious defiance at the raging ocean. And we win.
Maybe in our heart of hearts, X still marks the spot.
(This post is part of the 2013 Blogging From A to Z April Challenge. Learn more about the Challenge HERE.)
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