When the future seems anything but promised you simply stop dreaming and start merely living - immersed and grateful in the present moment you’ve been given for the heartache of unknown tomorrows becomes too much to bare. The dreams that once permeated your life have dissolved into a silent yet palpable hope - becoming the only stability in which your life owns. And, truthfully, those dreams don’t seem to matter anymore. We mourn them, and they silently live embedded within our hearts forever as we set our eyes upon the present and simply find the most happiness amidst the act itself of simply becoming. We dare not spend our life dreaming to become, but instead living to become who are meant to be with whatever time we are given.
In the last several years it has been increasingly painful to think about the future. Dreams that once fueled my future were met only with CF’s sharp realities - pushing me to become immersed within the moment and embrace the mere act of living. The single breath that bound me to this moment had become my only given grace and was the only part of this life with CF I could trust. I stopped dreaming as I could see my own painful unrealized hopes reflected in the eyes of those I loved. I felt I had lost my place a part of their future because of a disease that would forever be a part of my present. I stopped dreaming to save myself.
Namely, I stopped dreaming about a future with Mark and a story I feared I’d never be a part of. I stopped dreaming about growing old together, about places we’d visit, the adventures that would find us together, and, most of all, the simple moments in which the future would become our best of days - days reflected in a life and love woven together through who we had not only become as individuals but had become together through everything. I stopped dreaming of a future in which CF wouldn’t write the story for us and the dreams that entangled our hearts would be the life giving hope behind every breath. I simply stopped dreaming because it was too painful when I looked at Mark to mourn the life I so wanted us to have. I stopped dreaming about the future not only to save myself but to protect Mark from the perceived possibility of living a disappointed life. For almost a decade, with every breath I’d give back to the world a piece of those dreams would follow, leaving a growing silence between our hearts. But, as much as I’d withdraw from life and press myself into the safety of the present moment, Mark would turn and meet me there - never allowing me to live alone in such a place of hopelessness no matter our reality. For dreams no longer mattered, only this very moment in which we were guaranteed.
Filling the Pages
But, if I’ve learned anything this past month it’s when the dust settles upon an unpromised future and hope is all that remains, dreams begin to fill the silence left upon the pages that I’ve been too scared to write. This time, however, dreaming is different. My heart is different. I am different. Am I terrified? Of course. But every dream ever born of my heart will forever be reflected in the beauty of learning to live within this very moment and embracing not only who I shall become regardless of that dream, but living within the hope itself that gives it life.
Mark’s steadfast presence through every difficult and beautiful breath is a reminder that our life together will never be about the dream itself, but will always be about how we continue to live and grow within each moment we were given. That is what will define our story. For it is those collective moments of simply becoming that will fill our pages and make the most beautiful masterpiece. A masterpiece forever written in a hope born from a courage to simply become. Love to you all.
