For a long time now – 12 years, to be precise – I’ve been dreaming about all the things I’m going to do when I’m well again. Big or small, it never follows a pattern or has to meet any requirements. Forget the crazy plans, forget the career moves. This is just about life, the little events, the daily minutiae that make up life as we know it. It’s all the things I’ve missed, all the parts of my childhood I lost, all the memories I haven’t been able to form. A list of all the moments I wish I could have had, and all the things I’ll do to make up for it if I’m ever given the chance.

    I’m going to document them now. I’m going to write them all down so I don’t forget. And if I don’t get the chance to make them happen, then maybe someone else will remember that this is who I would have been, and this is what I would have done, for me.

Dream #1

    There’s a specific spot in Kensington Gardens where a friend and I sat one day in April. We watched a group of men play football on the grass, and I remember watching a small boy in a white hat staring up at the men as they played. He was only a toddler, but you could see the adoration in his eyes. You just knew he was dreaming of who he’d be when he grew up. I sat there with my friend, holding his hand, with my head on his shoulder, and I thought about who I was at that age, all the people I watched and looked up to. And I felt happy, so content with where I was in that very moment, who I had become. I was there to recover from such pain, and as always, found happiness and safety among friends.

    I want to go back to that spot, lean against that tree, watch the sunlight through the leaves, and just be there. I want to breathe in the air of a city I came so close to being a part of. I want to hold the hand of a good life-long friend. We’ll lean on each other contentedly, knowing without words that we’re both perfectly happy right where we are, doing just what we’re doing. Nothing has to be said, no conversation needs to fill the space. There’ll just be the tree, the sunlight, the grass, the many people wandering past, and us.