Where Did it go?

When we're young everyone always tells us that we can be whatever we want to be, and the whole world lies ahead of us. Our mind constantly changes as we explore the world, trying new things and figuring out our likes and dislikes. One day I want to be an artist. The next day an astronaut, maybe a writer. Through it all we dream. We are always constantly dreaming, about the future and what lies ahead. Yet suddenly I find myself 20 years old, in the middle of a university degree and I find myself wondering when did the doors close? When did my mind settle? No longer is the childhood colloquialism, "Be what you want to be" true. Many doors have already closed, and seemingly only one path lies ahead, straight and true. Sure the occasional path to the side pops up, but these are no more than faint trails, and to go down them would to leave the clear, well worn path, and travel into the unknown. Fear holds me on that worn path, the path I have carved out with every decision I've made and every door that I've closed. I find myself wishing I could travel back along that path, back to the crossroads, re-opening doors along the way. Yet sadly I cannot. I can't turn back time. I can't undo the decisions I made, and find a different path. But even if I could, I've come too far. Those are paths are far behind me, far enough so that I can no longer see where they might have lend. So even if I could go back, I wouldn't know which decisions to change. I'm stuck with the life I have carved for myself. My only consultation is the fact that there are still a few crossroads to come, and even now I find myself wandering down a beaten old track I hadn't even realized was there. I can only hope that this track will eventually join some other well warn road, and once again the future will become clear.

Even as I sit hear, I wonder what happened to those dreams. And then I finally realized: I never gave up on those dreams, I just stopped dreaming.