You want the moon? I'll tie a rope around it and bring it down to you...

What do you want to be when you grow up?

That question should never be asked, in my opinion. It sets us all up for failure.

Deny it. Go ahead. If you present a valid counterpoint to my point, I will listen with an open mind and be prepared to admit I was wrong.

But you won't. Because, provided that a.) you read this and b.) you take the time to let it sink in properly, you will realize that I'm right.

I am, in addition to being right, a lifetime victim/loser in the worldwide lowest self-esteem competition. For me to be this confident, well, you'd have to present one hell of an argument for me to concede.

This is why I am right.

When asked what you want to be when you grow up, you are, let's assume for my purposes, a child. Children have the most open of all minds, because they haven't been beaten down mentally to the extent the average adult has. Children don't understand failure on the scale that adults do, if indeed they understand failure at all on a scale measuring outside of their own world.

Children also have the benefit of imagination without limitation. This, I believe, goes almost hand-in-hand with an open mind. It's a beautiful, amazing thing, and I hate to see it disappear. I think I know the exact time it blipped off of my son's radar for good, and I mourned it no less than I would have a death. In fact, I believe it died with my grandfather. A lot of things did.

My point is that tonight, over twenty years after I left true childhood behind and remembered to close the door behind me so as not to let the heat/cold out, the door blew open again. And open = good.

The door opening contradicted two things I previously believed as a child on the cusp of adulthood:

1) The world really is your oyster.

2) Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

There IS a Santa Claus. And just as it was explained to Virginia in that long-ago letter to the editor, so was it shown to me.

Santa may not be the Santa person just as God may not be the dude in the robes and hair. But both are real. I was given the gift of a new life tonight, a life I thought I blew my chance at forever. I denied it. I cried about it. But in the end the rope still dangled. I'm grabbing the rope before I convince myself I don't deserve it.

Grabbing the rope also means turning away from the future I once thought was good enough. It means blowing the head off of that future, which suddenly looks a lot like settling to me. It means, maybe, blowing off a person who has been crucial in my post-marriage development and it means maybe blowing them off for good.

But oh, the rewards! The possibility of being able to return to school and not have the stress of figuring out how to pay for it...the possibility of dreaming again, the possibility of actually answering the question I feigned scorn upon hearing for the first time, years ago:

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

I have no answer, still. I don't know when I will have one. But what I do have is an open book with both permission and time to look up the answer.

Thank you. Thank you for believing in me. You are definitely in the minority.

To the rest of you, I will definitely keep you posted, whether you want it or not.

"Waiting For My Real Life to Begin" - great song. I can't believe the waiting might be over for good.