Dreams, do you have them? Do you dream only at night when you sleep; do you dream when you nap. Whenever you may do so, do you remember your dreams?? Do you dream when you daydream; are those “real” dreams, or are they just wishes?

I don’t really care when they happen, asleep or awake; I don’t care whether they are dreams or wishes. I don’t even care if they are “real” dreams or just snippets of your need to “want” something different or better than you are or have.

Let me tell you a story; it’s a story that some of you have heard before, one that I tell to my friends and acquaintances from time to time. It is the one that explains who and what I am, who and what I have become in my life, such as it is.

In June, 1995, I was a mess. I was at a point in life that some people know and understand, a point some people simply do not believe is possible. In every way there is, I was a mess. I simply did not care about anyone else, myself, or anything connected to me. I was a financial, emotional, physical, and mental wreck. Bad marriages, bad relationships, and bad financial decisions had been compounded by really bad personal decisions. My physical health was a result of lousy nutrition; I was working jobs (yes multiple jobs) that paid practically nothing; I was sleeping whenever I felt like it, usually at odd hours. I had no purpose in my life other than just making it through the day and night. In short, I just did not care, about anything, including myself.

If nothing had changed in my life, I am certain that I would not have been alive in January, 1996. Maybe it is hard for anyone to understand how someone could be so depressed that they would not care if they lived or died. I am not saying that I would have committed suicide, I don’t think that I would have cared if I did or didn’t do that. I just would not have cared to take the normal precautions with my safety or future life. When anyone reaches that point where they have nothing for which to live, they don’t do the normal things that will ensure their safety or future. Maybe it is like the fight or flight syndrome of animals. If you don’t think there is anyway out of the mess that is your life, maybe ending it is a relief, one that someone might welcome.

Well, naturally, just when you think that your life is rolling along as fate will have it, something comes along and changes it. The something was an acquaintance at one of my jobs, someone who somehow convinced me to meet someone on a blind introduction. I don’t say blind “date” because it wasn’t a “date”; it was a meeting over coffee. Due to my schedule, it was at 9:30 PM. Against all my thoughts, I met this other person. I remember thinking that I had nothing else to do, why not go on the “date”, after all she would just run away when she found out about me.

It didn’t work out that way, however. She didn’t run away, she actually saw something in me. She taught me how to dream again, not just dreams when I sleep, but whenever I want to just believe in something better and great. She also taught me something else. Dreams are good for your soul, for your spirit, for the way you think and act. When you dream, you become what you dream, maybe not exactly what you dream, but sometimes close enough. I also learned that dreaming that someone else needs me can make me want to be needed, can make me want to be someone that someone else needs or wants to have around them. I never dreamed that I could have someone who loved me, for me and what I could be. Now I dream that someone can love me, want to be with me, need me around, and that I can make someone else happy in life. Those dreams are very good for me, for my soul, and for my partner in life.

By the way, it has been 13 years since that blind “date”, the best 13 years of my life, a life that has its dreams back. I have them back because I let them back into my mind, both asleep as well as awake. I also let someone else into my life, someone who brought their own dreams into my life. I now have a life of continued dreams, with my partner, spouse, lover, best friend, and soul mate.

You never know when your dreams, whether you recognize them as such, will come true. You just have to be willing to dream; you haveto have the courage to dream. Then you have to have the courage and willingness to let them come true, in some way or the other.

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Jim Teasley is proud member of the PABA family, a representative of Juice Plus+, and a supporter of anyone who wants to “live their dreams”. Jim can be reached at 360-314-8691 or through his email Jim@JP4Now.com.

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