Middle-Aged People and Following Dreams

This Hub about being middle aged and following dreams (or not) is a matter of my own considering and pondering the matter. As a result, the Hub is lengthy. Pondering, after all, tends to run long. If you're not in the mood for long pondering you may be better off reading another Hub somewhere. If you're someone who likes long pondering then this Hub may not be too objectionable to you. I would have edited out material to make the Hub a more reasonable length, but what good is pondering if you edit some out. So - for good or ill - the pondering and considering follows.

In an online discussion about setting goals in life one poster mentioned that she had learned a sad lesson about having dreams by seeing her father, who had accomplished dreams by the time he was 25 and enjoyed them while they lasted, but then gone on to live the last 30 days without any particular dreams.  She mentioned that her father has projects, but not dreams.

I don't know this individual's father, so it isn't for me to guess about whether he lives a "reward-less", aimless, or otherwise uninspired life; or whether he lives in absolute contentment.  The discussion, however, got me thinking about dreams and how they can change for so many of us, as we get older.

People, of course, have different personalities, preferences, and dreams regardless of their age.  Some people are thrill-seekers and base their dreams on their thrill-seeking personality.  Other people live lives with an ever-present sense of seeking additional fulfillment.  Most of us disagree with the statement that dreams are for the young, because the role of having a dream or several dreams in our lives is an important one; and yet, while I can't speak for every middle-aged person in the world, I can't say I view dreams at all in the same way that I did when I was in my early twenties.  There is, in fact, a part of me that now believes "dreams are for the young" - but it isn't as sad, pathetic, or uninspired as it may, at first, seem.

Some middle-aged or older people live "never-ending-lack-of-inspiration" while others who lead quiet, day-to-day, lives (and appear to have no dreams)  actually live in "quiet, absolute, fulfillment".  I remember being on the "grown-kid" end of the parent/child relationship.  These days I'm on the parent end of things and see dreams differently now than I once did.  

When I was in my twenties and before I had children, I did the usual, youthful, thing of imagining the future I wanted, pondering what inner and external elements made for a fulfilled life, and focused very much on the self and future I wanted to build.  I couldn't imagine being a person who didn't have all kinds of big dreams (or at least someone with one, very, very, big dream), and I tended to think my middle-aged, widowed, mother was "living for her children" or "living for others".   She had a "small" life.  She had three grown children, three grandchildren, and spent a whole lot of time "doing for others" (inside and outside her own family).  She had her own home, and worked to the pay the bills.  My father had died 8 years after they bought their new home, and my mother was proud to have been able to "hang onto the house" (as she often put it) until it was paid off.   

When others suggested she spent too much time and money on other people, rather than on things for herself, she'd say, "I don't want to be one of these people who sits in my immaculate home, all alone, and has nothing else to do or think about."  I guess I just kind of assumed I "wanted more" than she did.  When others (not her own kids because we knew her better than this) suggested she travel she'd say to us, "What people don't understand is that I just don't care about going anywhere.  I'm happy having my house and my kids."  As someone who had all kinds of dreams for my own life, as well as a parallel dream to "somehow change the world", I didn't get a lot about my mother's apparent lack of dreams.  I suppose, in her own way, she was a "change-the-world-one-person-at-a-time" kind of person; but that can look like "living for other people" to anyone who doesn't get it.  I sort of "got" this part of my mother's thinking but still didn't get the apparent lack of interest in adding "more" to her life.

For most of my twenties I worked on building me "as a person", and my future.  Once a suitable amount of "building" had been completed I moved on to starting my family.   I still had my same dreams, but into my life came a baby boy who needed a mother; so I adopted him.  Although he was placed as an infant it took three years to go through the whole adoption process, so that whole thing overshadowed a lot of those dreams I'd always had.  In the meantime, my husband and I wanted to have whatever children we going to have before I got past my mid-thirties; so by the time I had had one second-trimester miscarriage, a bout with apparently infertility, a premature baby boy, and a daughter.  My first son was discovered to have "some mysterious learning problem" in kindergarten, right about the time I was dealing with taking care of a premature baby who had particular problems whenever he'd get an infection.  My first son's school issues remained a focus for me, although my little son outgrew most of the "premie health issues" at two, although he remained a child for whom infections posed more problems than they do for a lot of kids.  I was thirty-two when my daughter was born, so (regardless of anyone's school or health challenges) having three young children children, a house, and part-time writing work kept me busy and exhausted (but it was, as they say, "a good kind of busy" and "a good kind of exhausted").

Most people will tell you that once you have a child your whole perspective changes, and you also discover how it feels to care so much more about someone else's needs and happiness than you care about your own.  I can't speak for people who have their children when they aren't ready to have them, people who "have issues", or people who perhaps shouldn't have children at all; but for those of us who wanted our children, were emotionally ready to have them, and discovered what having children bring to a life, earlier dreams are likely to be put on the back burner when they weren't dreams that would enhance the children's lives as well as our own.
What someone without children may not understand is that when this happens it usually doesn't matter much to parents.  For many parents, devoting time and energy to children is far more fulfilling than reaching any of those earlier dreams; and, short-sighted and narrow-focused as it may seem, all a lot of parents come to care about is that children are healthy and happy.

Speaking only for myself, my kids' father, and a few other parents I know who have said similiar things to what I'm about to say; I've discovered that as my children have grown and more and more "become people", they've brought more to my life just by being in it.  Contrary to the common assumption (often by people without children or with very young children) that as children need us less (for things like getting dressed, eating, etc.) we can/should just automatically return to our earlier dreams, that having these increasingly "whole" people as a presence in our lives.

It's an inelegant and not-very-worthy comparison, but I compare the way ever-growing/maturing children fill a parent's heart and mind with the way pasta, as it cooks, increasingly fills the pot of boiling water.  The pot of water starts out empty.  Then the small, uncooked, pieces of pasta are added but take up little space.  As they cook, they take up more and more space.  There are parents who do put that "pot of pasta" on the back burner, but most keep it on the front burner to keep an eye on it.

The point is, when we're young and don't yet have children, it's as if we have that pot of water with nothing added to it.  The water may or may not have begun to boil, but where we are in life is only thinking about what we'll add to the pot when the time is right.  There are a lot of things we can throw in that will cook, but not all things behave the way pasta does when it's cooked.  Dreams, to the person with children, can often be compared more to the sauce, spices, and anything else that take more or less time than the pasta to cook; but that, if not added to it, will not result in our going hungry.  A lot of people believe that pasta meal won't taste as good without adding sauce and spices, but many are more concerned with whether it's filling, rather than how it tastes.  Some even discover that spices or sauce give them heartburn.

When love for our children is what it should be, it may be the purest form of love there is.  It isn't about being needed or needing someone.  It's about feeling incredibly whole and blessed just to have someone a part of our life.  It's about loving them more, not less, at time goes on.  It's about being happy when they're happy.  What looked, to me, like "living for someone else" when my mother said she was "just happy to have her family" now looks like something else.  

My kids are grown now.   One is home with me as she finishes her degrees.  Two live on their own.  I'm no longer worried about who needs their coat, who needs to have their stuff together for school tomorrow, or who needs me to go to the school and discuss their academic needs with teachers.  I'm not imagining the people I want them to become.  I see the people they have become.  I look at the three young adults in whom I see so much to be proud of, and I can know - for sure - that two or three decades of my life have been more than well spent and well worthwhile.  Tomorrow my "premie" will turn 28 years old, so yesterday we (my son, his brother and sister, their father, and I) got together for his birthday.  When I see all three of my children together and see how close they remain, it isn't just about them, as individuals, but about them as a family.   The sense of satisfaction parents of grown kids can have extends beyond just having kids who turned out to be good, kind, people; but to having a family remain close.  These may not be unique accomplishments, but most parents agree they're the ones we're never sure we'll manage until the children grow up and show us we have.

Somewhere between the time my own dreams for myself were the primary focus of my life, and later became so busy with the young children with whom I was so absolutely in love; and now, when they're grown up and I have the time to pursue any dreams I choose to pursue; I've awakened to discover that those big dreams I once had don't seem so big any more.   When I became a parent, not only did my whole world change but I became so much more of a person than I ever knew I could be.   

When you're a parent it can seem as if you have two identities at the time - yourself and you, as parent.  It can seem, too, as if the sometimes conflicting aims and wishes of "Person 1" and "Person 2" can run parallel to each other, sometimes conflicting with the needs of the children and sometimes not.  When a parent's dreams don't conflict with what's best for the children he may follow those dreams (but even then time, energy, and resources can be more limited once children are in the picture).  When dreams don't factor in well with being a parent, however, it's usually the dreams that go on the back burner or even get removed from the stove completely.
Either way, once you're a parent life and you become so multi-dimensional things just aren't that simple any more; and the dreams that were once suitable for "just you" don't always fit or matter.  In the middle of the muddle of who you are and what you want in life, it becomes very clear that your grown children's dreams become the ones you most hope will come to fruition.

Those dreams you once had and that have diminished in size and importance with time can seem to become nothing more than "something I wouldn't mind doing" or "something that might be nice to accomplish one day".  After twenty or thirty years of growing as an individual, and the same amount of time having experiences that make you so acutely aware of what is or is not important in life, those old dreams that were right so long ago don't even always make a lot of sense once you've lived for a while.   There are, of course, those dreams that we have when we're young and that we continue to have; but even they look difference when viewed against "The Grand Scheme" of life once you're a parent.

There's no doubt about it that many people give up on having dreams once they've reached a certain age.  For that matter, there are a lot of people who never have many dreams in the first place.  I think, though, most people have some dreams somewhere on a back burner; but I'm not sure too many parents are ever too interested in moving those dreams to the front burner, often simply because they don't care about them all that much once they (like my mother) discover they're pretty happy having "a small life" (or a "sort-of-small" life').  What a lot of people ask is, "how small can any life be when it has been so expanded by so much love?"

It turns out that what can look like "living for one's children" (which is very different from "living THROUGH one's children")  is really just "loving one's children",  multiplied by the number of children (and later grandchildren) one has.   What a lot of younger, childless, people don't realize about a lot of middle-aged (or older) parents is that people can be very happy feeling that they have more than enough in life.  Sometimes it's just not as sad as looks when parents are happy with the life and family they've built, whether or not they have dreams they see as "maybe nice to do one day" but not vital for own deep-down happiness.

Maybe, too, while young, single, people focus on and talk about the dreams that seem to be, or are,  so important to pursue; with older people's not seeing their dreams as such a big thing, they may not talk about them much just because they're always thinking about them.  Besides, it often comes more naturally for parents to want to listen to their children talk about their own dreams when they're having a conversation with their children.  That's not to say that the same parents don't get together with spouses or friends and talk about those "not-quite-as-important" dreams among themselves.

These days, I see dreams in the following way:
   
There are important dreams about "general life growth" - whether we want a family, whether we want degrees, whether we want to work in a certain profession, whether we aim to always be capable of building income/wealth, etc.    These are the big, life/growth, things that nobody can take away.  (We can, of course, be laid off from our dream job, but nobody can take away that we've become trained/licensed to find more work in the same field).

With this kind of dream, there is often the matter of accomplishing something that will last a lifetime.  A lot of people choose their own road to travel; so for many, not accomplishing something they didn't care about anyway isn't a big loss.   Sometimes this type of dream is something people pursue even while they have children.  Sometimes it's something people pursue once children are grown (if the dream was ever that important to them in the first place).
For the most part, there are only so many dreams that fall under this category (usually related to education, financial security/stability, choice of work, and whether or not one builds a family).  By middle age a lot of people have either accomplished any of this type of dream (or else they never cared about one dream or another in the first place).  This type of dream is often one that will offer a better quality of life to one's children/future children, so this can be yet another factor in seeing this type of dream to fruition.

Then there are the less important dreams that are often related to things, places, or accomplishments that only really mean much of anything to the dreamer.  Having that dream house, having a Summer home, seeing another country, etc.  Running a marathon may mean a lot to one person for one reason or another, but mean little to someone else.  Some people see this kind of dream as a "real dream".  Some see these dreams as "nice to have but not all that important".  This kind of dream can seem more important when we're young, especially if something like having a family isn't what we even want at the time.   These are the kind of dreams that can shrink in importance once one has children.

Depending on any individual's circumstances or challenges, there are dreams that can be very unique to that individual.  The child with learning disabilities may have a dream as simple as graduating high school.  The individual who has grown up in a family that moves from one rented apartment to another may have a dream of living in one place for the rest of his life.  When my cousin was young she had physical disabilities related to walking, and her dream was to be able to walk without crutches in my sister's wedding.  Sometimes someone else's dream isn't a dream we need to have because it's related to something we've come to take for granted.

By the time people get to be middle-aged or older, there are also situations in which it becomes clear that some dreams are unrealistic.  A whole lot of us want to believe that all anyone ever has to do is be persistent, do what it takes, and keep following dreams; but by middle age, and within the context of many realities, there are dreams that are clearly unrealistic.

As I sit here, at the age I am, I do have several of those things about which I think, "I wouldn't mind having," or "It might be kind of nice to do one day," and if there's any way I can pull it off I still plan to have a certain size/style of house that I'd consider "my dream home".  My "change-the-world" dream (which started with that "one-person-at-a-time" thinking my mother had)  and later turned into "keep doing what you can and see if life leads you to being able to do something bigger" hasn't gone away, by any means; but it is now accompanied by the thinking, "and if I never change the world, and all it turns out I've done is contribute three good and caring people, that's fine too".

In all candor, upon thinking about dreams I've asked myself if I have something missing in my life now that I seem to have reached a stage of "lack of dream drive" and "lack of driving dreams".   I ask whether it is maturity that has allowed me to see what's important in life now, or whether 30 years of living as an adult has beaten the dreams out of me.  In even the best of lives time brings more opportunity for loss and big life events, along with and the lesson they teach us.  Without benefit of a loss-free/big-events-free life I have no way to know whether I'm wiser to have come to view what I do as important, or whether loss has left me misguided about what's important.

At 20 years old I still had both parents and an unknown future to imagine and plan to build.  Three weeks before I turned 21 I was in a car accident that killed my long-time, closest, friend and left me injured. It was Lesson 1 in learning how short life can be for some of us, but it also made me aware of things like the importance of developing coping skills and learning to move on after grief.  With several injuries, I suddenly became aware of how we take things like walking for granted.  With a head injury that left me unable to concentrate and see clearly enough to read for months, I no longer took the simple act of reading for granted.  Months after the accident my father died at 62.  That wasn't just another "life-can-be-fleeting" lesson.  It was, among other things, a lesson in how that having-two-parents world can suddenly turn into one that changes forever.  Adopting a child when I hadn't planned to was something that showed me how life can put unexpected, delightful, and challenging dreams upon our "doorstep" and seemingly out of nowhere.

The miscarriage taught me that no matter how many dreams we have for our ourselves and our children, and no matter how hard we try, some dreams are not to be.  It also taught me that what "they" about "being able to relax a little more once passing 12 weeks in pregnancy" isn't necessarily true.  Having my premie showed me that some births are not met with pure elation but with elation, fear, and guilt at feeling that one has betrayed her child.   Watching the tiny, five-year-old hand of my eldest son, as he struggled to write his brief name, taught me that some dreams are about picking up the pieces in someone else's life, rather than searching for loftier dreams.  Having been given the gift of my two precious and absolutely beautiful little boys, followed by the more-than-I-dared-hope-for gift of a beautiful and precious little girl, I learned that sometimes we get what we never dared presume to dream for ourselves.  I was when I was expecting my daughter that my husband was diagnosed with an immune system disorder, and that's when I learned not to mourn things that hadn't happened, and may not happen, and instead know that some things are manageable a good part of the time.

When my husband's sister lost her 20-month son it wasn't just a reminder of how suddenly our worlds can be turned upside down, it is a horrible lesson in a new kind of unbearable and overwhelming grief and helplessness when it comes to children and life.  

Then, too, as the generation that came before us ages there can be more and more illness and death.   Through a whole series of people (like my mother, my husband's two parents, aunts and uncles, a couple of friends, and a cousin) getting seriously sick and/or dying; I learned whatever there was to learn from each, at least to some degree.  With both my mother and my father-in-law having heart attacks that led to losing their feet, there were lessons about what's important in life that went with both those long-running bouts with serious medical conditions.

When my mother passed away the circumstances were so different from losing my father that there was yet more to figure out.  Still, by the time she died all that was left of that generation in the family that came before mine was one aunt.  This is how life goes, and we all live it around these things; but once that aunt had passed away I had such an awareness that just about everyone and everything from my childhood were gone, and one kind of dream I had was to find a way to help my own children have some connection to what was also a world they, too, had lost.

By the time any of us is old enough to have grown children there has usually been a number of friends and family members whose serious illness or other difficult circumstances have touched our lives and taught us something.  Through all the sad things and losses, though, there is usually lots of laughing and happiness.  So much of life is about  graduations, weddings, job promotions,  job losses, new babies being born, new houses bought, holidays and birthdays spent with people who have always been special but become more treasured and important to us as time goes on.  Also as time goes on, we've often had the "unfortunate opportunity" to reveal to our-self how strong we are, how "good" we are in times of crisis, how our family manages to stay close in spite of it all, how we're better people than we knew were, or that we are only human.  Sometimes - in those fortunate times when we are not struggling with loss or worry or grief - life is about nothing more than day-to-day doings dotted with sunsets, sunrises, Spring rain, days at the beach, washing the dishes, and bringing in the Begonia plants if frost is expected overnight.  Sometimes, when you've lived 20, 30, or 50 years as an adult, you've come to view those ordinary times when all is well (or even wonderful) as more than enough.  For those who us who are grateful to at least have been adults before too many sadnesses started coming, there can be additional, particular, appreciation for that too.

As a parent, I realize that when I've been in conversation with my children it has usually been about, as I said, their dreams.  If not their dreams, it's often been a matter of my trying to share with them anything I've learned in life.  If it's hasn't been about those things the conversation may have been about how much I love them or wanted them.  Sometimes, too, it's just about day-to-day matters that are either necessary or interesting to talk about.  We've always enjoyed lots of laughing about foolishness too.   All of these conversations seemed so much more important to have than any about my dreams.  That's kind of the way it was with my own parents, too.

If my mother had any dreams she claimed otherwise.  She was a practical person who talked mostly about how much she loved her children and grandchildren.  If my father had any dreams he kept them a secret.  He, too, always said that all he cared about was his children and family.
The day the hospital called us to say my father, who had been hospitalized three weeks after his heart attack, had taken a turn for the worse; we all hurried to the hospital.  As my mother led the way to my father's room, only to see the bed empty and made up, she said, "He isn't there."  A nurse came, and my mother asked, "Where is he?"  The nurse said, "He's gone," and led us to a room where we could sit together.   The very second that nurse said those words my first thought was, "He's never going to see my children."  I was 21 and single, and I've never really known where that immediate thought came from.

I didn't think, "He never got to fulfill his dream," or "He didn't have any dream."  As far as I knew, my father's dream was to have a family and a home, and enjoy the rest of life against that backdrop.  It wasn't a big dream or an unusual dream, but I thought it was a valid dream.  The same is true with my mother.  My first thought when I found I couldn't wake her was that she would not suffer as she had for over year.  Years after she died, though, I mostly think about how she didn't get to see her grandchildren grow up or get to see the four great-grandchildren that are my sister's grandchildren.

Is it sad the once people get to be middle aged a lot of them don't think much in terms of dreams?  Maybe.  Then again, many people have seen those life-growth dreams come to fruition and just don't care that much about the less significant dreams.  I don't necessarily think it's a negative thing that so many people find their primary fulfillment in having their children in their life.  I'm just not sure that "the rule" about "always needing to have a dream to go after" necessarily applies equally to middle-aged/older people and those whose adult life is just beginning.

Do I have any dreams these days?  I don't really think so.  There are those things that I "wouldn't mind having one day" or that I "wouldn't mind doing sometime".  As for dreams of fame and fortune; fame is not something I've ever wanted, and I haven't ruled out fortune as a possibility (but to me "fortune" has to do with money, and I've never been one to think dreaming of money is necessarily worthy of being called a "dream").  I'll leave Mount Everest for someone else to climb, marathons for someone else to run, bed-and-breakfasts for someone else to run, and sailing around the world to someone else to do.

Maybe it's sad and pathetic to say that my only dream is about the health, safety, and happiness of my family; and then that I get to keep my own health for a good long time; but that's the way I feel.  Some people might call that "sad".  Some would think I have my priorities straight.   One thing most of us do know is that the more people we love in our lives, the more worry and loss we're at risk of facing.

Some people say that dreams are for people who sleep.  Disney's Cinderella sang, "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes."  When your life and thoughts are busy, as they usually are for parents, there's little time for sleeping.  Sometimes as soon as that first child is your arms you realize that all your heart's wishes have come true.  For most parents there isn't a lot of free time to do things once children are in the picture, so in those first years when children have become grown it can be kind of fun to just have time to do what we want again.  

Maybe the thing with middle-aged parents is that they need some time to just enjoy those day-to-day chances to do whatever they feel like doing.  Some seem to get tired of that and look for more after a while.  Others don't.  For now, I'm OK with enjoying any fruits of earlier dreams for awhile.  If a new dream shows up at some point that's fine too.  Dreams shouldn't be compulsory or forced in this life.  They should grow on their own and come from within.

I just know that as I consider the wholeness of my life up until now I wouldn't want my grown kids seeing anything sad about the fact that, at least for now, I'm not driven by a dream.  Maybe I'm kind of coasting on all those wishes my heart made that came true, but there's something to be said for coasting after so many climbs up steep hills and so many times when moving a mountain has been what it took to be able to continue on my way.

I know there may be a few too many videos on this Hub, but what pondering of dreams and life would be complete without a handful of songs.

"You're the Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me" is one I've often thought of when thinking about my children.

"Both Sides Now" is a song that has always had meaning for me (more now than ever). 

Cinderella's song about dreams can send a real message but is also, at times, more fairy tale than real.   It can be nice to keep Disney characters and fairy tales in our life regardless of our age.

The young Michael Jackson's rendition of "I Gotta Be Me" made me think about the complicated role dreams can play in a life, the positive and sometimes not-so-positive elements of some dreams, and the fact that one might question when, in his life, Michael Jackson (with all his fame and fortune) ever really got to "be him".   In other words, some dreams aren't what they're cracked up to be.

"This Is My Life" (Billy Joel) most likely strikes a chord with a lot of people, whether or not they have a big dream,a small dream, or no dream (when others may believe they should one).

"My Way" (performed by The Three Tenors) is a song often seen as "corny" and "melodramatic" , and The Three Tenors may never be particularly appreciated by people who like music that's cooler than three guys in a tux will ever offer.  Still the song views life from a time when there's little time left for dreams; and even though middle-aged people aren't usually anywhere near the end of their life, this song can seem a lot less corny and melodramatic to people once there's a little more life behind them than childhood and teen years.

The last video, which I've left full sized and for last, is one which speaks for itself.