Little Post-it Notes

I have these little post-it notes in my memory bank. I think they are filtered by the information processing police in my brain keeping track of what's-important and what's-not.

I never get to read them until years later, but today I got to see one!

I was 17 when I fell into young dumb love for the first time. It was all the movie scenes--pushing shopping carts, kissing in the rain, writing songs about each other. When you're falling in love, inconsequential things are always pregnant with meaning, and this was one of those times. We were sitting in the car, mellowing out to some weepy emo song when I asked him to tell me what he dreamed of. Where was he, what was he doing, what was he feeling, at the most perfect moment he could imagine?

He said he was walking down a street positioned in a quaint little town, wearing a big black peacoat and gloves. The best feeling was the warmth of someone else's hand in his on a cold, winter night.

I told him I pictured myself in a rustic, sort of trendy run-down basement in a big city where things happened that shaped the world. I was praying with a group of close friends that God would move and do something through us as a community.

He said that sounded awesome, started the car, and we drove home.

He wouldn't even remember this conversation happened. I didn't remember it--until I realized that, 3 years later, we were both living out our dreams. He moved back home and dated a pretty blonde for three years. I moved to Manhattan and tried to change the world (/realized that world changing is slightly more fun in theory than in practice).

Your dreams really do inform your life. Think about them, verbalize them, see if they match up with someone else's. I always wondered why it didn't work out with that guy. Maybe it's because we had different dreams.