This Doesn't Mean I Don't Have Dreams

I picked up Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Empire Falls, a few months ago and have finally made the effort to read it. This morning on the bus, I read a bit that has provoked my thoughts all morning.

Down below, the Fairhaven and Empire Falls players were trotting back onto the field, halftime over. Janine did her best to act interested and upbeat, yet she couldn't help thinking how soon these limber cheerleaders, now doing back flips, would be married and then pregnant by these same boys or others like them a town or two away. First the panic that maybe they'd have to go through it alone, then the quick marriage to prevent that grim fate, followed by relentless house and car payments and doctors' bills and all the rest. The joy they took in this rough sport would gradually mature. They'd gravitate to bars like her mother's to get away from these same girls and then the children neither they nor their wives would be clever and independent enough to prevent. There would be the sports channel on the tavern's wide-screen tv and plenty of beer, and for a while they'd talk about playing again, but when they did play, they'd injure themselves and before long their injuries would become "conditions," and that would be that. Their jobs, their marriages, their kids, their lives - all of it a grind. Once a year, feeling rambunctious, they'd paint their faces, pile into one of their wives' minivans and, even though it cost too much, head south to take in a Patriots game, if the team didn't finally relocate somewhere to the south where all the decent jobs had gone. After the game, half drunk, they'd head home again because nobody had the money to stay overnight. Home to Empire Falls, if such a place still existed.

In their brief absence a few of the more adventurous of desperate wives would seize the opportunity to hire a sitter and meet another of these boy-men, permanent whiskey-dicks, most of them, out at the Lamplighter Motor Court for a little taste of the road not taken, only to discover that it was pretty much the same shabby, two-lane blacktop they'd been traveling all along, just an unfamiliar stretch of it that nonetheless led to pretty much the same destination anyhow.

I know the sentiment expressed in Russo's book isn't limited to fictional characters. My friend Henry recently wrote a note to a few of us sharing a similar attitude: "If everything goes according to plan, I will be moving back after law school and find some overpriced apartment downtown, pay off my loans in 60 years, make a little money, or in the alternative marry wealthy, settle down, have kids, send them to school, retire, then die. So far I can't complain."

According to plan. I live most of my life according to plan. When I was 18, I mapped out my life according to what seemed relatively unselfish, or at the very least, didn't seem to ask much. I'd meet the man I'd marry at 23. Date him for 3 years until our wedding at age 26. Have my first child at 29 and my second at 31. I'd then consider adopting up to 10 more.

I didn't really plan out what would happen past that; I just vaguely made out still shots of football games in the backyard of my Nebraskan summer home, shucking corn on the patio and listening to the chirps of crickets and cicadas on warm nights. Of making aluminum foil crowns with gumdrop gems and setting up treasure hunts around the house on rainy days. Of dancing in the kitchen with my husband while the kids napped. Of writing a story of growing up that would make Lake Minnetonka again as famous as Prince once made it in Purple Rain.

As I fell in love with God, I learned that MY life plan was no where near as wonderful as His. And for awhile, I encountered no obstacle in pursuing Him. God could take me anywhere, anytime. Send me to China, God! Make me single forever! I don't care! You can do anything!

Now at 25, my old plan has appeared again to fight for consideration, afraid that God has nothing indeed for me specifically, and that perhaps it would be better for me to reach into the back files and rexamine my earlier strategic life plan.

Argh. Can someone please tell me why I am so easily hung up on how things LOOK? I am annoying the hell out of myself. Do I really believe that life would be so much better if I could realize every single fantasy snapshot I've ever taken? And HOW would life be so much better? Because it would be easier? Richer? Safer? Happier? And is that what I want at the end of the day anyway?

After 80 years of life - if I'm lucky - I'll get to say I pursued happiness? Really? Is that really what I want?

No, that sits uneasy with me.

Here's what I want: an undivided heart. And when I reexamine MY plan in light of that, I realize that the two cannot mutually exist. I feel I'm sitting at my desk with this piece of paper in my hand, all its ideal dates and fruitless daydreams, wishing God would just come in and snatch it from me. Oh, but I have to pitch it myself.

Oh.