dream, dream dream dream!!!

Yeah, the Everly Brothers write good songs. . and i can hear their dreamy little ditty circling around in my mind's ear now. .

my post is not of the romantic type though and more of the 'pipe dream' or 'day dream' variety. My conscious dreaming has morphed a lot over the years! When i was a girl i used to have these crazy fantasies that many if not all of my own perceived shortcomings could somehow miraculously disappear and i would suddenly be endowed with astounding abilities, eliciting 'oohs and aahs' from all those who normally would a) not even notice me or b) make fun of me or c) critizie me. . my dreams were always 'i'll show them'. . Its crazy. . . okay, i've always been a bit awkward -- i was a 'back row girl' in the class pictures every year (tall). I wore cat-eye glasses! (geek), i was 'bookish' (hopelessly kinetically challenged - with 2 exceptions: swimming and badminton) my mother cut my hair (i can't find a word for that!!! perhaps "traumatized"??) this woman had a nonexistent esthetic. So, yeah, I was taller than all other girls in my classes up until maybe grade 5? until the hormones kicked in i was often called a 'boy' by any and all substitute teachers, like i said - cat eye glasses, i wore home made clothes (and not good ones, folks -- I was at the mercy of the fabric sales at Woolworth's) i couldn't play any kind of sport to save my life - i would pull any and all tricks in the book to get out of gym class and i used words like "goody" and "gee". . . *oi* (In grade 4, Valerie Sitnik, God bless her cotton socks, told me that "Nobody says 'goody', so if you want to be cool you'd better stop saying it.") I owe her a debt i cannot pay. . . So, you see why i had this rich fantasy life???

I would often fantasize that i was little, petite, cute, all the boys liked those kind of girls. . I pictured having flouncy, blonde hair instead of home do 'pixie cuts' that made me look like some prepubescent Liza Minelli. . When i couldn't get out of gym class and they made me do gymnastics for instance. . my day dreams would take over. . so i had parents who never enrolled me in anything, no gymnastics, no team sports, no skating lessons - my 'lessons' consisted of my father pushing me across the bumpy outdoor rink on dull swap table specials. I always had a bike, which the older neighbourhood kids taught me to ride by taking me to the top of the street and pushing me! i only learned to swam cuz it was part of our school curriculum. You get the picture. So, gym class, there are mats on the floor, there are expectations. . . other girls are doing 'round offs' and tumbling moves - (the cute, little ones) my palms are sweaty because the teacher expects me to do what i've never been taught to do, and what my body was incapable of doing!! It was absolutely horrible. . i had no grace, i could not do the arm swoops and the deer-like leaping. . i was a bull in a friggin' china shop!!! it was utter humiliation. So, after receiving some good, sound heckling i went home and thought "Wouldn't it be great if i could show them?" I could see myself in my little dream bubble. . executing a floor routine that made the teacher applaud madly and made the cute ones stare respectfully and open-mouthedly. It was nice while it lasted. By the time i got to high school, track suited, clipboard carrying, whistle-blowing, middled aged women still expected me to do things with my body that i was not programmed to do. . only now i had the added humiliation of performing these distasteful tasks in a blue, puff-sleeved 'gym romper'!!! and the piece de resistance: white gymnastic booties!! Our high school was big - we had a couple of gyms - so we were made to change in the upstairs locker room, then run down stairs to the main floor gym. . Of course we then had to walk down a hallway. . and the whistles and screams made our cheeks burn and our psyches churn!! horror! I had daydreams of burning the romper, breaking my limbs, going to Siberia, you name it. I used the 'girl problems' excuse until my credibility lapsed. . hey, what can i say? i tried!

I was still tall, amazonian and no less awkward. I couldn't do a balance beam routine to save my life, though they forced me to. Uneven bars? those belonged in some medieval castle's dungeon as far as i was concerned. Floor routine? I still had nightmares over that!!! the ONLY thing i could do was vault and only in the most lumbering, rudimentary way imagineable. My gym marks were nothing to write home about. Eventually I experienced the elation of dropping gym from my course load. . Hallelujah! burn the yellow and green uniform, burn the gymnastic bloomer and booties! Now THAT was a dream come true!!!

my other day dreams were, of course, about boys. . . i grew up in an era where young girls' dreams were summed up in the school yard rhyme : "_________ and _____ sittin' in a tree k*i*s*s*i*n *g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes ________ with a baby carriage." So that was my dream. I day dreamed at school and I day dreamed at summer camp. . the dream was the same: 1. be noticed. 2. go steady -- i couldn't get much past that point, nor could i get past my old demons: "I'm ugly and my mother dresses me funny." How i wished that i could be like my lovely, bird-like camp friend, Julie Johnson. . Her clothes were perfect, she got to wear jeans (my home-made plaid bell-bottomed pants seemed positively elephantine next to Julie's straight leg "Lees") my big feet and broad shoulders stood out in stark contrast to her daintiness. She had soon snagged a guy and i, of course, did no such thing.. . they held hands, they went to canteen together. . i dreamed of someone being my camp boyfriend, someone to sit beside at camp fires, someone to hold my hand. d'oh. . sometimes its easy to lose hope, lose your dreams. . It took a few years, but guess what? I finally started to be noticed, one season i had to choose between 3 guys. . and i shamefacedly say that i juggled all three the same week!!! the next year i met this guy who turned my legs to jell-o and made my heart palpitate. . and i didn't have to dream any more, cuz this one was different and he thought i was lovely and delicate (his feet were bigger and his shoulders wider) he was TALLER!!! i didn't have to wear flats!! he noticed me and he wanted to 'go steady' with me. . and you know what? we just celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary last month!!! First came love, then came marriage, then came Kathy with a baby carriage!

I still day dream but its gone down hill, man!!! I have ceased to dream about back hand springs and being noticed by boys. I don't dream of burning my gym bloomers any more, i dream of burning my mortgage!!! now THAT'S a dream!