I Have a Dream…

Sometimes having a dream is a good thing.  Sometimes, it becomes a nightmare. 

There is one saying that is constantly heard from the very first time one arrives of the shores of this grand country.  And that is that we “all come here to live our dream”.

I, along with many thousands of others, had a dream; I had a dream in which I saw my family together, in which those people with whom I had spent the first growing years of my life would all be able to see each other as always we did, to hold each other, to nurture each other, to be there in time of need.

When we come to a new country, we are all affected by the drastic changes to our lives. From those who come here via first air class ticket to those who cross the Rio Grande inside the bed of a truck, or those desperate folk who cross the straits floating on an inner tube or even trying to accomplish the impossible feat of swimming it, we all hope to be able to look to the future and the possibility that perhaps some day, we will be able to recreate that familial feeling that somehow disappeared as soon as the idea of crossing over became a reality.

There are no people exceptions when it comes to having this wish; it is pretty universal. We who are at a given time trying hard to accept and adapt may acknowledge it or not; we may think we should not dwell on these thoughts and may keep them hidden and private… I know I did for a long time… but in doing so we enter into a denial lifestyle. We react to these feelings as we go along and often they will impact the life we develop while here. Perhaps thinking that we will at some point go back “home”, we do not fully embrace the opportunities that come our way during those first years… usually the most difficult years to survive in a strange (to us then) environment. We fail to see through this self imposed exile within an exile and recognize that we are now in our new home.

As years go by, as I remember this unfolding story, individuals begin to recognize those facts of their new life as lasting; we each begin to accept that, perhaps, we should really define our thoughts and define our actions as it befits the structuring of a new life and a new environment. Many of us, in this difficult process, have had the help of patient folk who saw through this anguish and understood. Others were not so lucky. These have had to fight through that inner field of discomfort and antagonist feelings to, in the end, come to -at best- an uneasy truce.

I have a dream… that some day we can be one again, that we can be truly a part of a group that welcomes one without looking at how he/she looks or thinks… that we can share our thoughts and act on them while respecting the other person’s.

I have a dream… that we come to understand that amassing money and things are not a realistic end… you really and truly cannot take it with you… And while here, one is so besotted with the pursuit of riches that these are never enjoyed. These are material means to ends; instruments and tools to be used in order to yes, live well ourselves, but also to help others with lesser opportunities to study, work and get ahead in order to have themselves a better life if they so choose to do.

I have a dream… that peace among us is a possibility; that political zealots of all stripes will cease to inflame those who follow them and who themselves cannot or will not look beyond what is being said into what truly is… so that we might be able to coexist and pursue our own thoughts in the freedom to do so.

I have a dream… that we, as human beings, can go on to the next level of existence; a level which will allow us to explore our own potential, that which resides in our minds and which has yet to be reasonably utilized. What wonderful frontiers could we explore if we actually set our minds to these pursuits? We can only guess… and dream.

Perhaps these dreams are foolish; perhaps unreal and difficult to accept in our limited perception of what, who and why we are or may be. But not beyond a possibility and, as long as this is so, I will hold on to them.

Be Well … Be Back!!!

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