What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
— Langston Hughes
All too often, we defer our dreams, believing somehow that another time will somehow be more suitable. Our hope is that the future will offer less stress, more money, more time and fewer of the mundane hassles that keep us scurrying from here to there, without a sense of accomplishment.
While we can't know what the future may bring, we can hold fast to those dreams and take steps to honor and bring aspects of those intentions into our present.
When Megan and I discovered that having children naturally wasn't an option for us, we did a great deal of soul-searching and realized that adopting a child was the avenue that spoke to us most deeply. The past three years or so have been a journey for us to get on the same page when it comes to parenthood, mutual expectations and accepting how we need to approach life to bring this dream to fruition.
Even now, while we have yet to embark on the search for a birth mother, we see in each other and in our work ways in which we are expressing this dream. We look at our connection to other families and our celebration of their accomplishments, as we move into a position of greater stability and greater capacity to bring in a child of our own.
Perhaps our greatest challenge has been for us to hold the dream in the same space, at the same time. We have been fortunate that during times of difficulty, there has always been one of us capable of carrying the dream with a clarity that always seems to show itself when it is most needed.
In my experience, believing in the dream, despite the odds or obstacles we face, feeds the dream, giving it energy and life. With this vitality, we find direction and a sense of meaning in our lives, whether or not the dream is ever realized.
While we can't fully control whether or not we will adopt a child, we can hold it as a goal and work toward it without becoming overly attached to the outcome, thus freeing ourselves from any fear of failure that may keep us from living fully in this moment or preventing us from success. Holding a dream in that way also enables us to discover happiness and joy from it, guiding us to find deeper meaning within our work and service.
While not the same as having children ourselves, I've come to realize that I can still contribute to the lives of other families, whether it's laughing and making silly faces with our friends' kids or working with children with disabilities to help them learn to become independent. Supporting their growth and sharing the joy of their successes makes me believe more fully in the dream of our own family, and inspires me to pursue our dream, because I see the joy of my friends who are parents.
A dear friend of ours once told us that a dream deferred was not a dream denied. While I agree, it seems to me that perhaps when a dream deferred is given a little breathing room, it finds ways to manifest itself in ways you would have never imagined.
