Of Hearts and Dreams

From a very young age we all develop dreams for the future. First those dreams are about things we might want to do or have the next day or next week but gradually they become more ambitious and wide-ranging and more often concern themselves with what we want to be doing when we are grown up.
For example, when I was young my dream was to be a train driver. You know . . one of those impressive steam locomotives which I was fortunate enough to observe many times whilst standing on my grandparents balcony near the train station.
I was fascinated by the big, shiny, gleaming locomotive bellowing smoke from seemingly every orifice and those massive wheels of steel being driven forward by a red steel rod connecting them all.
I had visions of me pulling the train into the station and people looking at me with great admiration, jealous of the fact that I had a job where I would see many far away places.
Today, even though the original dream still sits deep in my heart as a young boy’s dream of how things should have been, I realise that reality is never quite like the dream. Electric trains and diesel powered ones just haven’t got the same romance and being assigned to a shuttle service between 2 cities doesn’t hold true to the childish idea of ‘seeing the world’.

Many of our dreams will get shattered throughout our life but after reading many people’s blogs I guess the ones hardest to handle are broken dreams about relationships.
Whereas not achieving the job we dreamt of or the belongings we hoped for might point to various reasons, broken relationships seem to firmly point to one thing:
‘I am not worth (read pretty, fancy-able, clever, slim, tall, exciting, sexy, successful, lovable, adorable, secure, etc.) enough’!!
This ‘fact’ is further enhanced by each and every day we have tried to no avail to keep the relationship going and by every tear we’ve cried.
If your Best was not good enough, what chance of happiness is there for the future??

Children have a great self-preservation mechanism at their disposal!
They constantly make new dreams and if a dream gets shattered, they just make a new one - always hoping - always trusting - always waiting for the next dream to arrive.
Like you and me, children are scarred by broken relationships and just like them, you need to know that you are loveable, acceptable and worth more than you could ever imagine.

If you had saved up for a car and when you took the money to the dealership it was gone, would you burn your money?? No way!! You’d keep it save in order to buy a different one at a later stage!
So it must be with your heart, your dream!
Your Best might not have been enough in your last relationship but your average will be more than enough for another one, as long as you don’t lose heart!