Living the Dream

Big dogs don’t cry. I’m not ashamed to admit little ones do. It’s no secret that I wear my heart on my proverbial sleeve. But there was a time I wasn’t so open to expressing my emotions. My time on the streets and in the humane society had hardened my perspective on the world. Fortunately the world has a way of changing our perspective on things.

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way,” English poet William Blake suggested. “Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and  some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature  is imagination itself.”

My eyes were opened on a hot August day almost three years ago when I met my adoptive parents for the first time. Just as perspective changes things for the bad, I remember that day my perspective changed for the good. It’s a switch I won’t be flipping back in the other direction any time soon either. In fact, I’ve noticed lately that the more you let the good into your life, the more good life gives you. That’s one of many reasons I dream big.

“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today,” as American icon James Dean once said. I am, in fact, living the dream.

So I suppose it’s not fair of me to assume big dogs don’t cry. I would prefer to think we all are capable of shedding a tear every now and then, happy or sad. “Maybe I’m in the black, maybe I’m on my knees,” sings Chris Martin of Coldplay in “Every Tear’s a Waterfall.” “Maybe I’m in the gap between the two trapezes, but my heart is beating and my pulses start, Cathedrals in my heart….Every tear’s a waterfall…so you can hurt, hurt me bad, but I’ll raise the flag.”

William Blake saw beauty in the trees. Chris Martin finds the joy in teardrops. I dream to live and live to dream.

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