remember that you once dreamed of being where you are now: a miscellaneous expression of gratitude

Remember that you once dreamed of being where you are now.

I used to walk. It’s funny how I don’t do that anymore. Now, I skate. I glide across the floor with a destination in my eyes. I am living my dreams. I am baffled and mesmerized by this perfectly oriented life I am living. I’m just typing here because I have to put it down on paper. On screen? Onscreen! Oh, the future really is coming, isn’t it? I have the keys of another person, which is almost as cool as having keys of my own. Yet, with borrowed keys to permanent locks dangling from my wrist, I still glide. First to arrive, last to leave, gliding from start to finish. 

Now, to address the elephant in the room, my vernacular. I have found myself saying the word “perhaps” quite often. But don’t worry Mom, I swear this one really is just a phase. It’ll soon be placed back inside of the dictionary I keep in the basement of my mind, right next to “plethora”, “lovely”, and “juxtaposition”. Elephant, why now? Why do you think I am choosing to call you out at 2:02 AM on a Thursday morning? Well, to be completely blunt, I abhor your connotations. There is no hesitation or disbelief in my eyes when I view my future. There is no uncertainty for where I am now. I am loved. I am trusted. I am valued. I have someone else’s keys. No elephant bearing a word as menacing as “perhaps” is going to stop me from existing in the dreams of an eighteen year old version of myself, of a nine year old version of myself, of a five year old version of myself. Of an Emma who draped bath towels around herself in the mirror of her bedroom, just so she could attend a red carpet event on a school night. Of an Emma who bounced around a stage the same way she leapt over balance beams. Her dreams then were the same as my dreams now, with only a skyline as a notable difference. But this life I am living is so familiar, and I haven’t even lived it for a full year. However, I have lived in my dreams for the past nineteen years, and I can safely say that not a thing is out of place. 

I am so in love with this vision before me. 

I am so in love with my life. 

All of the morsels of frozen moments that dot the path of my past. Winding, stagnant, pulsing moments. They radiate like the Sun that turns the sky blue and then indigo and then pastel orange and then back to blue again. Yeah, it really is just like that. Just like the way the Sun can be every color at once, and still only show you the one you’re needing at the time noted on the clock face. The way life can be saturated with every emotion possible, and still only let you feel one at a time. Perhaps two, but then it’s too many. 

I needed this emotion. I needed this blue sky. I am so in love with the atmosphere around me. I am so in love with the Sun and all of her colors. I am in love with hammocks and God and large parties in small rooms. I love books named after me and named after other people, too. I love clouds, even when it’s nighttime, and I love the stars and the moon just the same. Sometimes life is an ocean, and when it comes time for me to go back under, and that time will come, for the Sun also sets, then I will adjust my focal point to the underside of the water’s surface. The horizon’s foundation. And I will look to it as the clearest sky. Different, yet changing in the Sun’s light. And I will still love my life and the way water billows dresses more elegantly than air ever will. Suspended in catalytic freefall. And even that, too, will pass. And in that magnetic darkness, I will stretch my hands upon the sandy shore, uttering the words so longed to hear by the world: thank you.