On fantasies.

If my supervisor is right, Disney and Nicholas Sparks have a lot to answer for.

I think my problem is that I expect so much from the world...perhaps things that don't even really exist. I've opened up to this guy a lot - my supervisor that is - about how I think things should be. He laughed at me, and maybe he was right to do so. I suppose the world and life and fun and love are not what they had been built up to be my whole life.

I never thought that I had actually picked up fantasies from movies and books, but reflecting on my expectations of what life could be like...should be like, depending on my mood...I know that these things are at least much more common in fairy tales.

Regardless, letting go of the expectation that someday I might have something great of my own feels like giving up, and this always seems less desirable than holding on to the hope that maybe someday things will be different.

By all accounts, right now things aren't really so bad. Yes, my job is incredibly stressful and there are certain people in my life that could be considered to owe me a little more support. But I really do have all I need. My problem is that I want so much. I can't even rebuke myself for it, because all the things I want are good.

I wonder what God would say to this. I pray but I never feel closer to an answer. But I get all the answers I like from songs like "1,2,3,4" and "Kiss Me" which is of course sappy, ridiculous, and probably too embarrassing to mention unless it were very true - which it is.

I keep thinking that all I need is a little time to recover or regroup, mature a little more, learn some lessons, and then I can try again and hope things will be different. But because of the pattern I always end up in, I have to wonder if maybe I'm crazy. The only thing that remains consistent is me, and whenever there is a situation like that it calls for some reflections.

Like this one.

If I'm not crazy, then perhaps I'm trying to live in a fantasy world that doesn't exist. And if so, if I ever want to be happy I need to stop.

But I just don't want to. So I guess I'll just have to continue getting browbeat by life until I do.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for dreams to be real.

"Like out of the Far East..."

I am…so very arrogant.

What I mean to say is that I am sorry, both to myself and to others that have spoken to me that I claimed I had done everything there is to do about my situation. There is still hope, and I wish I had the courage to acknowledge it to those who spoke to me – even those who spoke anonymously to me over this blog. In my hurt, I gave myself permission to pridefully proclaim that all other opinions about the situation were null and void, and that my despair was gospel.

Today, I spoke to someone in my profession who is much more experienced than I, and has been very credible to me since the moment I met him…often in a way I couldn't deny, even if I wanted to. This man, a 'mentor' if there ever was one, just speaks to me, and I believe what he says. Today I told him all about what has happened to me over the past several years, and he spoke to me about a philosophy toward my problems so bold and tenacious that I would never have thought of it myself. I can be bold and tenacious if the situation calls for it, but at heart I am cautious, and think first of the cautious approach to situations.

I did not agree to all that he said – not yet, at least – but I did acknowledge that his idea was attractive to me. I told him that his idea was a philosophy "like out of the Far East," a foreign idea coming to those Westerners who thought they knew it all. I did think I knew it all – but clearly I did not.

I have often spoke of characters from stories in this blog. I have readily admitted in one particular blog post that I admire most the characters who never give up, who are bold and tenacious. Like Han Solo, Magus, Vegeta, or William Wallace. I like them because we are so unalike, but they have qualities I wish I had. I told this to my mentor, and he told me that all men wish for such qualities. He is probably right. I am not special in this – but I am special in that I’m willing to try.

I've come too far to do anything else.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream full of boldness and tenacity.

Mr. Brightside.

"I just can't look, it's killing me...and taking control. Jealousy, turning saints into the sea. Swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibies. But it's just the price I pay! Destiny is calling me, open up my eager eyes. 'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside.

I'm seeing a counselor again. She seems like a nice lady and everything, but I think I can tell what direction we're going to take. It's the same conclusion that my last counselor and I reached - that there's nothing to do, that other people and the world are what they are, and all I can do is become stronger, more tolerant, and carry on.

I am convinced that who I am is good. I really care about other people and am empathetic to them, and am a far better listener than anyone else I know. That is something I will never try to change, even if it makes me so lonely sometimes when I want the same in return. Even if it leads to periods like this where I want to disappear forever.

It is also true that every time I go through a period like this, I become more tolerant of the next one. I am beginning to feel better already, and though I know I am not even close to where I was last October, when I was probably the happiest I had ever been in my entire life, this is still a relatively quick recovery for me.

But I don't want my life to be all about being Mr. Brightside and just hoping for things that won't come. It would be nice someday to know that all I hoped for really was going to come true. That true, loyal, loving life-long friends will be mine. That I can get married and make a family. Unlike in the Killers song posted above, it would be nice to not watch while other people receive what I want from life, while I watch and hope for my turn.

I know there is nothing to be done, except to be a stronger person. At my mother's funeral, that was one of the things I quoted from her during the eulogy. "Don't pray for an easy life, pray to be a strong person." OK, Mom. I will.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to be a strong person.

What Lies Below.

Dreams are the mind's way of taking a nice, refreshing poop.

Last night I had a dream that bothered me a little. In the dream, someone I don't like very much trapped me in a warehouse. I played nice and asked her to let me out, while she continued to threaten me with making everyone believe I was a bad person and other things that she would never actually say but my mind knows I find horrific. Well, when she came back in to taunt me to my face, I let her know she made a mistake by promptly grappling with her. For a moment I was afraid I had messed with the wrong opponent, since I was surprised at how her size contributed to her strength, but in the end I was still able to lift her and throw her down onto the ground. This did nothing to stop her, though, and it wasn't until I brutally bent her so that one side of her face was pressed into the ground and the other into her stomach that I had truly won.

"You will let me out. You will never speak to me again." I said to her, as her face turned bright, cherry red and the pain showed very clearly on her face. I felt a pang of guilt at seeing how hurt she was, but I reminded myself of her attempt to trap and defame me before letting her off the ground. She quickly went to fulfill my demands, letting me out and sobbing as people began to ask her what was wrong...while I slinked off elsewhere to think about the lack of foresight that could get me an assault charge and whether her entrapment was good enough for a self-defense defense. Then I woke up, relieved.

What does this mean? Well, besides the obvious fact that I still have a lot of messed up dreams, it means to me that I have a lot of anger to take out. Mostly when I'm impatient, frustrated, or angry, I let out a little steam by slipping out a few curse words or having an angry expression, but apparently this isn't enough. I'm very angry about certain things that keep happening to me, which I need not repeat lest my readership that may already be annoyed at all my emo posts (sorry! It's really my one guilty internet emo thing) consider this one the final straw.

Problem is, what do I do about it, anyway? I can't exactly actually go punching people, now. I used to like to throw a softball in the air and hit it as far as I could, and run after it...Over and over until I was too tired to be angry. Now that seems...silly. And probably won't keep working.

If you have any ideas...let me know.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for peaceful dreams.

The characters in your story.

There is very little that makes me angry anymore, but if there is one thing I can count among those things it is ignorance of this fact: you are not just you.

Allow me to explain. Your soul is unique. There is no one else in the world, nor will there ever be, nor has there ever been, anyone just like you. I imagine everyone is on board with this at this point, and there's nothing new. But this is true about everyone else. And God has put the people you know in your life for a reason. Nothing is simply circumstance because everything's existence is contingent on God's benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent being.

There are people in your life right now - unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable people - that you will never be able to fully understand and fully grasp in your life. I don't care how boring, uninteresting, strange, ugly, etc. you think someone is, they are a universe of possibilities. Everyone you know is fantastically complex and full of potential. That is why abortion is such a plague: it ends people's lives before this potential can be unleashed. Your neighbors are not just your neighbors just as you are not just you. Your neighbors are potential lifesavers, friends, best friends, enemies/difficult people, teachers, mentors, and if they are of the opposite sex, potential spouses.

This is what makes me so angry: potential wasted. Other's lives gone unconsidered. How many people go through a day without considering the characters in their lives? Your life is a story. God is a storyteller and he made you...you have a unique life to live and you're living it whether you like it or not. Don't you ever look around at the characters in your story and realize that these people are in your life for a specific purpose and to fulfill a specific role? I know many who don't. Or at least, they really don't seem to. Everyone you meet is not just a person you have met. They are not just what you think they are. Everyone you meet is potentially the person that will change your life. If you write them off as "just a friend" or "just my sibling" or "just my teacher" or "just somebody" you have closed a door to infinite possibilities.

Nothing makes me so angry as a person set in their ways about the people in their lives. Someone who just knows who somebody is. Here's an easy example for someone my age and I hope I'll be forgiven the cliche quality of it: unrequited love. I'm only speaking of the type where a friend of the opposite sex denies another friend because they're friends. It's like saying "I'm sorry, we can't be friends because we're neighbors." It makes no sense.

That's why I think really hard about who is in my life. I want to know about them, who they are, who they want to be, what they think. I know I suck at it. I know sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes I make mistakes. But damn it, I try! I try so hard. And I know I can never learn enough about these people I know. I can't figure out how I feel about all of them or what I really ought to do with them and for them. Sometimes I get tired of it, or fail some other way. But at least I'm committed to figuring it out. I can't say everyone gives me the same consideration. I know that sounds like I feel entitled. That's because I do. I feel entitled to the same consideration that I know I will probably not get. Perhaps this is probably a fault. But I know this is how I see things and I can't change that until I see how it's not true.

I'm so tired of seeing people going through their lives without asking the important questions: who am I and what am I doing? Having a job can never be as important as putting your resources to good use. Having a social life can never be as important as seeking to understand and grow with the people you know. Having a family can never be as important as building a family that revolves around love. I am a poor mouthpiece for this knowledge. But I'm willing to say it. I hope that's good enough.

Reader: who are you? To yourself? To me? What could we be? Are we willing to find out? You can count on me to have an emphatic YES to that last question!

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to explore the casting of my story.

Saving the Princess.

For a long time, it always seemed like my princess was in another castle.

Let me take you back to a long time ago. I'm not exactly sure when it began but I was always very fascinated with heroes as a child. I would try to find books where a heroic protagonist could take me far, far away to a magical place where I could watch him save the world...or the universe. Courage, power, wisdom, and tenacity were the only qualities I really valued back then.

It wasn't until my gaming phase came into full swing that I could really lose myself in a hero. I could actually become the hero. It's amazing how wonderful it is sometimes when you are a young boy with low self-esteem to lose grip on reality for a little while and fight monsters, save the princess and the world. I don't really regret all the time I spent...sometimes. I think that all that immersion in other worlds and fantastic heroes really rubbed off on me in a good way.

I think even though until this past year I was always hurt when attempting to court ladies, I think it was better that I had a chivalrous, noble attitude towards it than a chauvinistic, womanizing one. Even without a good relationship with the Lord I still had a strong ideal of what a good, heroic man was and strove for it.

Still, I spent a long time as a loner and as such could be very alone with my thoughts. Because of all the stories I read and the heroes I became in video games I had a very unrealistic hope for my future. This has been somewhat tempered by the past six years of real life slapping me around a bit.

Despite that, what I still really want sometimes is to be a true hero. Not in the simple sense of a role model, or even someone who saves a kid from a burning building...something more like Link.

Link is the main character of a series of video games I've only recently been able to find time to enjoy. Link is a green-clad swordsman who travels across the land of Hyrule fighting incredibly powerful foes and exploring dungeons in search for missing pieces of the puzzle to saving his world. He is often allying with or saving the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda, and must always defeat the evil Ganondorf, a powerful warlock.

The more games in the series you play, the more you come to realize that there are actually many different Links with many different adventures throughout time, as well as many Zeldas and many Ganondorfs. See, in Link's world, there is something called the Triforce, and as the Triforce has been separated, the three parts have cleaved themselves to the hands of those who best embodied the three parts. Zelda has the Triforce of Wisdom on her hand, Ganondorf the Triforce of Power, and Link, the Triforce of Courage. Thus, Link is the living embodiment of Courage. Somehow, whenever Hyrule is in trouble, some incarnation (or reincarnation) of Link is ready to save the day. Link is exactly the sort of hero I like.

Life can become so disappointing when you get a taste of what it would feel like to live as a hero. I have a gift for suspension of disbelief - a suspension that allows me to really feel like I am the one who is really having these incredible adventures...for a little while. I guess it's not always a good thing.

I just wish that I had some kind of outlet for this intense desire to have a grand adventure. In this world there are no quests, only work and play. Sometimes only work.

I am at this point going to anticipate some instruction from my well-intentioned friends/readers. I know that only God can fulfill all of my desires and that heaven is the greatest quest on earth. Thank you (without any sarcasm). However, if you are telling me this in relation to my post, you have entirely missed the essence of what I'm trying to relate.

I'm going to at this point bring this back down to earth a little bit. I suppose the main point of this rather incoherent narrative is that I don't know how to reconcile my lofty aspirations with my easily-earned place in life. I have a great relationship and a good future. I just don't know how to appreciate it...and that makes me feel selfish.

I just wish I could make my own life more exciting somehow.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for adventure.

Sermon of myself.

"Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world."

I think that may be the most fantastic image of a dead man there ever was: Tolkien's description of the deceased Aragorn, one of the main heroes in the Lord of the Rings.

When I was younger I had many grandiose images of my future self. My imagination would get the best of me, and I would have impossible dreams of a fantastic mix of all my favorite heroes, a sort of Super Jedi who wielded an ancient sword and had magical powers. The sort of man who was powerful, yet noble; just, yet merciful; stoic, yet charming. A man who could only ever be fictional.

I've become a different kind of magical superhero. The kind who lives a pretty humble life, unnoticed by most of the world. I never would have thought that a walking rosary would be something I would want to do with friends...two nights in a row. I'm pretty OK with who I am.

My friendships have never been better. Just when I thought I couldn't feel more loved, I was surprised with two more cakes and a surprise birthday party after my last post. I got the nicest birthday card ever, filled with a message from the heart that made my eyes mist a little bit.

I feel like the shell that contained my former self who wanted to be a hero but was in reality no one was scraped out by strong hands and filled with something better, something that wasn't me but was what I really was striving for all along. A better kind of hero, a lover of God.

The good things that people like about me aren't from inside me, they are from God. The only thing I did that's worth any praise is that I slowed down and started listening to God and putting my faith in Him. The rest is Him.

These are all things I've touched on before, but I feel like it takes on a more profound meaning when cast in the light of feelings I've had lately. A great friend of mine sang a song that spoke of a father who misses his daughter, recognizing that his memories of her in the wake of her death are only a small image of the happiness of heaven, a place far beyond his wildest dreams where he will see her again. The part of the song that makes me cry hardest is when he begins to talk about his finite view of heaven:

"But in my mind’s eye
I can see a place
Where Your glory fills every empty space
All the cancer is gone
Every mouth is fed
And there’s no one left in the orphans’ bed
Every lonely heart finds their one true love
And there’s no more goodbye
And no more “not enough”
And there’s no more enemy...no more..."

As happy as I am I never really feel like I belong here anymore. The song touches me because it speaks to my experience on earth. I'm tired of feeling far from God. I'm tired of family dying of cancer. I'm tired of people being heartbroken. I don't want to keep saying goodbye to friends only to never see them again, especially one dear friend who will be gone from my life forever in less than two months. It's killing me to think about it.

There is consolation in the knowledge that no two lovers of God see each other for the last time. My friend and I love God, I know, and we will continue to grow apart even in our separate lives. But heaven feels so far away.

I think because of this understanding I feel I know the reason I'm so attracted to people. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that I feel like I want all of my friends to be a large part of my life for the rest of my life. Why I feel sad if I can't see someone, or I'm not growing in friendship with someone. There are few people I don't like. It's all because I want to achieve heaven, the final frontier, where I will be one with all of them, if they love God. I don't want to say goodbye anymore.

That said, this seems to be who I am. I have a friend who is gifted with a great deal of wisdom. I ended up talking to him for almost three hours one cold night, walking all around campus. It was an honor when he said, after I told him that I learn a lot from him, that he learns things from me, too. I really don't know what they are, but he thinks I'm special. That really feels good coming from him.

If someone like him can say that to me, then perhaps I am closer to being the person that inspired my imagination, so long ago...

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was to see you again as I am in heaven.

Glasses of water.

"Oh they say you could see your future,
Inside a glass of water
With riddles and the rhymes
Will I see heaven in mine?
Oh Oh Oh..."

I could sure use a glass of water like that.

So, I worry about the future quite a bit. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? What is God calling me to? What are my options? Sometimes I don't like to think about it.

I must admit that sometimes I have a fantasy future. This future is full of fun things like children, a home in the country, adventures in the hills, laying out under the stars with my future wife. I even wrote a story as my future self months ago which I read to my girlfriend sometimes. It would be pretty embarrassing to relate in more explicit details, but it's good writing, at the very least.

But how am I going to bring this future about? Sometimes I read it just to remind myself what I want in life. Besides the most grand adventure of reaching heaven, I have grand adventures planned in this world as well, God willing.

What will I see in my glass of water? Is it half full or empty? Am I just waiting around to fail once again, or will the stars in heaven align to give me the chance I need again to make my life what I want it - need it - to be?

"STARS IN HEAVEN ALIGN! OOH OH OH AH!"

I can't bear the thought of ending up as nobody again. When I woke up and realized I was wasting my life a year ago, I said I had failed for the last time. But if I can't get a decent job and fulfill my dreams I will have done just that. It frustrates me that I don't even know where to start. Often when I pray nowadays I pray that God will show me the way, but then I start thinking about it more and more and I can't even pray right. I'm getting attacked spiritually, that's for sure, but I just don't know what to do about it. I can't pray.

It helps to pump myself up with music. My roommate and I laugh at a video of Piccolo, a character from Dragon Ball Z, yelling after being infused with power. "I can do it! I can win! I FEEL INCREDIBLE!" It's funny, but I find myself having to do the same thing sometimes. I have a lot of help around, and my girlfriend is of course a wonderful boost to my spirits, but sometimes I just need to blare motivational music as loud as I can and get excited to do what I need to do to succeed.

I have a big problem with laziness. I hate to admit it, I really do, but I hope maybe this confession will somehow help. I hate admitting it mostly because I talk so much about dreams and hopes. It makes me feel like a hypocrite...and maybe I am.

C.S. Lewis writes that some of the most delicious souls to the devils are those of hypocrites. If I am unable to overcome this vice of sloth someday I might make a tasty meal.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that we would never cease to look to heaven for hope and motivation.

Dreams have come to life.

"...Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: 'Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?'"

This, my friends, is how I feel, and I'm posting late at night so I can put it down before I forget exactly what I wanted to say.

Life nowadays is like a waking dream. I keep wondering when I'm going to wake up and the dream just keeps going on. It's as if I decided what I'd like my life to be like and it just came true. Why did God choose to bless me this way? I may never know. What I do know is that all the pain I've experienced in life has led me to this point...I've never appreciated pain so much in my life. It has brought me here to this land of dreams.

I've never been called perfect before in my life, nor has anyone ever said they were excited to do something as simple as getting coffee with me, but I've now heard both, and more yet, in one night. It was so cold out, but walking with the wonderful woman who said that to me...I felt warm. I think I'd still be out there walking with her now if it weren't for the fact that if I weren't going to bed soon, I probably wouldn't wake up for morning prayer.

I find it funny in a wonderful sort of way that she and I were thinking the same things about each other these past few weeks: Why would someone so wonderful like me? They probably don't...All without knowing the other thought the same thing. How close we were to missing something beautiful.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream is becoming real.

How this began, and the meaning of "There Was a Dream"

A long time ago, there was a blog that no one read. That blog belonged to a younger me with an entirely different but related life. Long story short, lack of readership meant lack of motivation, and that blog is lost even to me now.

Regardless, I still love to write, but most of my writing is poetry that has been shared to some extent, but a lot of the best pieces I've shown to only a few, or no one at all. Blogs, however, have been something I always wanted to return to, but couldn't bring myself to try it. Why? Quite simply, I felt I already had one. Every once in a while, I'd write a note on Facebook. That was my blog, and it was yet another blog that went relatively unread.

However, I wasn't entirely honest with myself. Most of my thoughts that I could write a page or two on (and possibly make into a Facebook note) stay in my head and then are forgotten before I write them down. Not only that, but I wasn't giving myself much of a chance. It's true that my writings might not become the choice of read for millions, but it might become the choice of read for a few. And that's worth writing for.

After all, the only 100% chance that my blog is a failure is if I never write one.

That being said, I suppose I should mention that a friend of mine did tell me I should write a blog. I haven't a clue why. She's read some of my poetry, so I'm not sure why she thinks that my prose will be any better (just kidding, my poetry rules). But she did mention that she has one and people comment on it. She thinks her writings are boring too, and even though I disagree, it IS something we have in common about blogging. So that's an encouraging thought.

One last thing - I'm sure people are wondering about this blog title. Sounds a bit dramatic, like I'm some kind of pretentious emotional mess. Well that's true that I'm an emotional mess, but I'm not pretentious and I can explain the title better than that. There Was a Dream ultimately comes from the line "There was a dream that was Rome...it shall be realized" from the movie, Gladiator. The line is said as Maximus (spoiler alert), the general turned gladiator, after successfully killing the tyrant emperor who ruined his life, reinstates the republic, the DREAM that was Rome, and then dies.

The line has served as some inspiration to me. Maximus is a man who was "the greatest general Rome ever had" but yet, only desired to return to his family and his farm. Yet, the Emperor wished for Maximus to succeed him, because Maximus' humble intentions were the means by which the republic could be restored to Rome. Before Maximus could be named his successor, however, the Emperor's son kills the Emperor and becomes the new emperor by default. Maximus is ordered to be killed, but escapes, finds his wife and son dead, and is sold into slavery as a gladiator.

Yet, even while death seems such an easy escape, Maximus perseveres to not only become an incredible gladiator and leader to the men around him, but using the influence of the crowd manages to become more powerful than the emperor himself, goading him into a fight and killing him even while he himself is mortally wounded because of the tyrant emperor's tricks. With his dying breath he fulfills his promise to the deceased emperor: "There was a dream that was Rome...it shall be realized."

Everything he loved was taken from him, but yet he continued to live to fulfill a promise, and a dream. I sympathize.