happily ever after...

The theme of my life for the past several months has been about fantasy vs. reality or better put, fantasy vs. dreams.  Breck Costin, my life coach, puts it beautifully “Our fantasies must die for our dreams to come true.”  But the media doesn’t feed this to us.  The media feeds fantasy after fantasy.

As most of you know my childhood was less than wonderful, yes I had clothing, food, shelter but I didn’t get the love I needed.  I probably needed a lot but don’t most kids?  I wanted to be seen and I wasn’t it.  My family was too busy feeding their own hatred towards each other so I resigned to fantasy to keep me happy.  I grew up thinking my fantasies were dreams and would one day come true. And of course like most little girls, my fantasy of choice was that an incredibly beautiful man would come and save me. And that it would happen just like that, poof. 

Last Fall I wrote about my excitement for Sarah’s story line on “Brothers and Sisters.”  It went something like this –she went to the South of France where she met a beautiful painter in a barn and they fell in love.  This was my fantasy to a “T.” (I believe Spirit did this on purpose.)   The season unfolded with Luke moving in and Sarah wanting to control him by making him a success as a painter so he could be a provider.  Then he leaves because he doesn’t want to be controlled. (This is a trigger for Sarah because her last husband was an artist that she supported.) Sarah meets a new guy, he’s real with a job and nice, no fantasy, they actually survive a difference of opinion but she always says it’s, “nice.”

So last week on the show she sees a painting that she loves –you’ve probably already guessed it was Luke’s. It was.  The nice boyfriend buys it for her ($500) for Valentine’s Day even though he doesn’t like it.  When he gives it to her he asks her to explain why she likes it because all he sees is childlike scribbling. The nice guy say’s “We don’t have a lot in common” and they break-up –nicely. 

Sarah returns to the gallery and asks that the painting be put on her credit card and removed from his.  Of course, Luke comes out say a cute little line and then they kiss and we are propelled back in fantasy and it is delightful and my heart sings because I’m thinking maybe her fantasy is going to come true or perhaps her fantasy died and this will be real now...whatever it is.  It is like heroin.

Obviously, I’m still working on getting off my drug of choice, fantasy.  It’s not as easy as I thought it was going to be, it’s like extracting an old tree from the earth with the intention of leaving all the roots in tact. 

It is hard to let go of happily ever after.