In my utopian world I would be welcomed with smiles and confetti upon entering every room. Every cast member in my personal and professional life would make it their responsibility to create an idyllic day, every day. There would be no complaining. All options would be wonderful. And dreams come true. (Pop!)
I think my utopian bubble was first burst when I was 10 years old. My father taught me a universal truth: Life isn't fair. I didn't believe him, and kept searching for the land over the rainbows. In high school I found Disney World. Colors, candy, and Christmas were year round. But, the vacation ended and I was left to wander back to my life of homework, heartbreaks and bad hair days.
It was my late 20's and early 30's when life's cocktail allowed me to hope that the life of Disney could be every day. Prozac gave me super powers. A new boyfriend turned my pastel world into a tie dye of primary colors. I seriously remember a day when I looked at the sky and it was transformed from boring to brilliant blue and grass, it wasn't just grass anymore it was emerald strands of lushness. I was in luuuuv.
And then the second Great Awakening came . . .
My then boyfriend told me after a not so exciting date, "Every night can't be Disney World." What a letdown. I had till then hoped that perhaps one day everything would magically line up and my life would be the Life of Disney every day. Maybe I set my expectations too high. I was thinking about this last night. The realistic boyfriend is now husband, and last night we were talking about my picture book world. While he tied the weighted string to my balloon, I was still secretly hoping that somewhere out there – the dream that I dare to dream might really come true. After all, every day there is a parade at Disney, and every night there are fireworks.
So I started to think about this. Are my expectations too high? Do I long for things that only exist in story books? (Dream career, never having to look at price tags, for prince charming to be charming all the time, a cleaning lady.) Or perhaps I am too busy reading picture books written by someone else and hoping that its illustrator would come and transform my life. Maybe God is waiting for me to put down the books and pick up a pen and my own set of Crayola's to author and illustrate the world I want, to take responsibility for the things I don't like in my life. Or maybe I need to be grateful for the life I have, to be content.
Hold on . . .this post is way too first person, and I know you are nodding your head thinking about the advice you would give me. Well, "mirror, mirror on the wall. . ." what about you? I am not the only one who isn't whistling while I work.
I know exactly how you feel! Life is good but I am always longing for more than just good. The way I see it is that God puts that in us so that we don't forget Him. If everything was fireworks, we wouldn't need Him. We would get too wrapped up in other human beings. Heaven will be continual fireworks just because then we will be with God face to face.
Posted by: Natalie | September 10, 2011 at 12:14 AM
Good point Natalie. Although sometimes I wonder if god is waiting on me to make the fireworks, you know, to actively participate in the process of the filling his purpos
es in plans for my life.
Posted by: Jennifer Fonseca | September 10, 2011 at 10:14 AM