I sometimes feel that, each day, my hopes and dreams drift further away.

They are intangible things, to be sure. They are wily things of mist that slip from your grasp and curl gently away. Perhaps that is why we have them. To live is to constantly hope for things that may never be. We must always be without something, so that we must strive towards it. Then, once we finally grab hold of it, and it is no longer that unsubstantial wisp of smoke, we grow bored of it. We hope for something else.

There are things I constantly yearn for, believing that if I get them, I will be happy. The truth is, I am sure I will just move on to something else because maybe I find it impossible to be happy with what I have. Perhaps that is just who I am.

With each thing I accomplish, I don’t stop for long enough to allow myself to breathe, to soak the success in, and just be in the moment. I wish I could. Instead I feel time slipping away and I scramble to do all the things I feel I should do, instead of focusing on what is important to me.

I try to make the effort to focus ony dreams. I feel like it shouldn’t be effort, if it is something I really want to do. But if I don’t push myself, then I will never actually do it. I will get caught up in the endless tide of work, sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat. I will curl up on the lounge and watch Netflix rather than sit at my computer for even an hour to write.

I just hope that (and there’s that word again, ‘hope’) when I finally achieve this goal, this seemingly insurmountable goal, I can stop. I can smile. I can take it all in.

Because, as Emily Dickinson once wrote,

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

That sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.

And so I will not stop. Even on nights like these, when it seems foolish to even dare to hope. Because that’s all I have at the moment – hopes and dreams.