Day 5-Your Dreams

Dear Dreams,

I don't expect much.

I want to be happy.

But if we're dreaming here, I'll be a little more specific. Sometimes, when I think about the future, I feel selfish because I want so much. But all the things that I want, the career, the family, the knowledge, the culture, the experiences, it really all boils down to one point: being happy. Loving my life.

I want more than anything to enjoy going to work. I don't want to have to live paycheck to paycheck and dread awaking in the morning because I'll have to enter a building that I despise. I want to constantly be excited by my work. I want the theatre that I stage manage to change lives. I want it to start a fire within someone. I want people to see theatre and reconsider or solidify their beliefs, their opinions, their thoughts. I want it to awaken someone's spirit.

"Life beats down and crushes our souls and theatre reminds us that we have one. At least the type of theatre that I'm interested in; that is,theatre that moves an audience. You have the opportunity to literally impact the lives of people if they work on material that has integrity..."
-Sanford Meisner

I want a family. I want to hold my baby in my arms. I want to have a husband who is the epitome of passion and love. I want romance and surprises and someone to make me smile on my most awful, terrible, no good days. But I know this does not make or break my life, so I'm not too worried about this part of my dreams.

I want to learn. But I don't want to learn in a school. Give me a textbook and command a chapter to read, and I'll hate you for it. Give me a plane ticket to Egypt and tell me to explore the pyramids and the history of their ancient society? Learning is hands on. It's something that you need to see to understand. The experiences you gain from another culture are irreplaceable. You've got to learn how other people live. You've got to understand that there are other people in the world and you've got to appreciate their lives, their beliefs, their thoughts. Travelling has been such an experience already, and I've only been in Vienna for 3 weeks! What a life I could live if I could travel for a long while.

I want to backpack across Europe with my best friend.

I want to cross off every single thing I wrote on my bucket list when I was 15.

I want to have this life that I've always envisioned, and I believe all you have to do is make it happen. I believe in fate, but you make your life what it is, so lookout, dreams. I'm gonna make it happen!

I'm smiling at the prospect of my future, and so I have to remember that the biggest part of life is not the actual future, but the roads that lead you there. The experiences you encounter along the way that shape your dreams and your future.

Above all, my dream is to be happy: doing whatever I'm doing, wherever I'm doing it.

Love,

Ashley