And still I dream [she’ll] come to me,
That we will live the years together,
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather….

That sad lyric comes, of course, from the heart wrenching “I dreamed a dream” from Les Miserables. Oh, don’t worry…things aren’t as bad for me as they were for poor, shorn Fantine. But I have bumped into what could be my first firsthand experience with the limitations of middle age: we lose the ability/willingness to change and with it lose the possibility of realizing the dreams that remain unfulfilled or, in my case, ungranted.

But when is it time to throw in the towel on a dream? Is hope toxic? Is hope the life support for dreams. It keeps them alive when there’s actually no chance of their fulfilment. Do I need to sign a DNR (do not resuscitate) order for my ability to hope?

Yet if we jettison our dreams, do our lives become, as MacBeth whimpered after the death of the vile Lady MacBeth, just “tales told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”?

I’ve been trying to write this post for weeks. Each time I’ve come to it, ready to soak you with a bucket of my despair, the same thing has pulled me away: Love. I’ve been a called away by love.

You see, the irony is that the point of this post was to lament love. Love is both my dream and my tormentor. I’m reminded of Nanci Griffith’s wonderful song Fields of Summer in which she writes:

Love has chased me down through the cities and the towns
Until I stood beside the road and let it pass me by
Like a fool I’ve missed the rain ’cause I was crying.

This post was intended to be my requiem for a dream (it may still be). I can’t bring myself to say it though. I can’t bring myself to surrender (maybe that’s my problem) to despair or even, more conservatively, to indifference. And, yes, I know time is ticking away. While friends my age celebrate 25 and even 30 year relationships, I celebrate getting all my laundry done for once.

In my darker moments, I wonder why I got left out. Was I forgotten by the Universe or was I simply unworthy? Did I accrue such a huge karmic debt from the errors and actions in the first half of my life that the bill in the second half of my life is so huge it must be paid in instalments of hope with disappointment as its compounding interest rate.

Rosa, my beloved psychologist whom I’ve mentioned before, once suggested I stay too long in bad relationships (I’ve improved in that department!). I’m wondering if the same is true for my relationship with hope. I wonder if it’s time for us to go our separate ways. Dear Hope: It’s not me. It’s you. No hard feelings (well, I have a few hard feelings.) Hope, at least in this area of my life, has accomplished nothing. It’s been about as effective as planting a pine tree and running out every summer morning to pick oranges from it.

When life seems so hell bent on keeping me from something, isn’t there  point where I have to say, “Fine. I don’t want it.” UNCLE!!

I’m close to that point. Very, very close.

But, for reasons I likely related to stubbornness and utter stupidity, I’m not quite there yet.

Love isn’t here. Love isn’t here….but it’s somewhere.
~ Patty Griffin, I Don’t Ever Give Up