when a dream you want doesn’t want you back

When I was a young girl, I loved art, but I didn’t think I was very good at making it. There were better artists than me in my grade at school, and my art teacher never seemed to get excited about my work. Art wasn’t anything I was praised for, so I just assumed I wasn’t very talented at it and it would have to be a hobby.

Not only did I love making art, but I loved *looking* at art. I especially LOVED going to museums. Since I didn’t think I was going to be able to be an artist, I figured the next best thing in the world would be working as a curator in a museum. And I realized that even though I couldn’t draw a good portrait of someone, I could work super hard at school and learn about history and art and make my dream come true.

I majored in Art History in college and did well, but was eventually derailed by my health, and by a professor who (unkindly) told me that disabled people really didn’t have much of a place in the world of museums. I was devastated, of course. I remember that day vividly- after I met with my professor I went to a friend’s apartment and just stood on his balcony and stared mutely at the Atlanta skyline, too stunned to talk, tears streaming out of my eyes. I spent the next week in a stupor.

After a while, I pulled myself back together and decided to focus on something else I loved- film history and theory. I got a full scholarship to graduate school for Film Studies, did that, and went into graphic design. Ironically enough, my work in graphic design and digital art evolved into me doing creative work *off* the computer, which led me to life as a jewelry designer and painter and illustrator.

Yes, I get the irony here: The one thing I believed that I couldn’t possibly be was the thing I wound up becoming. And I’m still working on owning that- it’s a struggle every day to identify myself as an “artist”, but I am getting closer to it.

But the dream of being a curator lingers. There’s a part of me that believes that my purpose in life- the reason why I was put on this earth- was to be a curator. I mean, why else would I feel so strongly about it? Why would I continue to agonize over it, continue to consider going back to school to “fix” my career, continue to think I missed my calling?

I’ve made a lot of decisions that I’ve regretted in life (and I’m talking the kind of regret that makes you sit up in the middle of the night and gasp in embarassment) but I’ve managed to get over most of them. In fact, I can honestly tell you that I can see the ways that those “bad decisions” actually improved my life in the long run. So why the hell couldn’t I get over the curator thing?

In a way, it really felt like I had a dream, but the dream didn’t have *me* (if that makes sense).  

But then 18 months ago I had a revelation.

As I was swimming on a sunny, beautiful Florida day in March, I started to wonder what the curators at the museums in NY might be up to at that exact moment. As I swam back in forth in the warm water of my pool, stretching my body and working my muscles, I started thinking about what life at that very moment would have been like if I *had* chased my dream, if I ended up as a curator in a Big Museum somewhere in New York City.

First things first- I thought about the environment. The middle of March might be beautiful weather for Florida, but in NY, it can be awfully dreary that time of year. It’s still cold, but also rainy and a bit “stuffy” from winter going on too long and spring taking its sweet time in arriving.

In that winter gray of NY, I saw “Curator Chel” sitting in a tiny, windowless cubicle behind the scenes in a huge museum. Let’s be honest –  a lot of museum work is behind the scenes, and unless you are a guard, a tour guide, or a conservator, most of the work is done very far from the actual art itself. It’s a lot of talking about the art, getting people to see the art, getting people to donate *for* the art, but not a lot of one-on-one with the art.

Curator Chel would probably be wearing somewhat uncomfortable but “professional” clothes. I kind of itched at the thought of that- I long ago abandoned “fussy clothes” for relaxed, comfy clothes that are good for running around in and getting paint and ink on. No dry cleaning, EVER. I don’t own an iron. The last time I wore pantyhose was in the 1990’s.

As Curator Chel talked on the phone about budgets and deadlines and ideas for drumming up funding for her department, her eyes might constantly drift to the clock to make sure that she wouldn’t miss the train home. Curator Chel would be hoping to get in before 8pm and to bed before 10pm so that waking up at 5am to make it back to the city the next morning wouldn’t be exhausting.

I saw Curator Chel coming home to a quiet home- no pets, maybe even no people, because committing yourself to work sometimes means other things have to be sacrificed.

Maybe on the train rides to and from the museum, Curator Chel might start daydreaming.

She might daydream about the same stuff that I did as a kid, and then as a teenager… a little yellow house with white trim, right by the water. Maybe that house would be somewhere warm and sunny, somewhere with blue skies. Maybe the house would have a little garden and a pool out back, where swimming could be done year round, any time of the day. Maybe that little yellow house might even have a little art studio inside of it, stocked full of interesting art supplies. Bookshelves with interesting books, not just art history and guides. A fridge with food for all meals, not just the rushed “standing over the sink” breakfasts and late dinners that a job in the city might impose.

Maybe, just maybe, that house might have some pets in it. Maybe even a little family, a wonderful husband and an awesome kid to spend hours with, in the mornings and the afternoons and the evenings.

It hit me like a ton of bricks- what “Curator Chel” might daydream about, and what I’ve always sort of daydreamed about – is my *current* life.

A little yellow house in Florida, that backs up to a bay, with a pool (after years of swimming in public pools!!) and a tiny space for the garden out back, plus a cozily stocked art studio to spend hours in. Enough time to take care of my health and be productive, as well.

And the best part- a little family that was created from love and time and commitment.  A fun family that I get to spend a lot of time with, every single day. Tom and I have always worked from home, and we’ve spent a tremendous amount of time together the last thirteen years, day in and day out. I can’t imagine NOT having had all that time together- it’s what makes us us.

That whole process of IMAGINING myself as a successful curator who would be daydreaming about the life I *currently* live was very profound for me. I finally got it- a dream had come true (the dream of being an artist) but it was the one that I thought I *couldn’t* have.

I’ll be honest- I still feel a sense of loss over the dream I decided not to pursue. I still peruse grad school listings and do the math over what it would cost to go back and become a curator. I still think about how I could make a life as a curator work here and now. I still think about someday getting my own laminated pass to wear around my neck, still think about people addressing me as “Dr. Micheline” and trusting me to tend to priceless works of art that define centuries of heritage and culture.

But when I start thinking of that, I realize that maybe I might not have the PhD behind my name, or the scratchy professional suit in my closet, or the key to the vault at a big museum, but there are still a whole lot of opportunities for me to share art in this world. And maybe some of the art I share is art that I make myself.

And maybe that’s what the dream is about after all. Life can be funny sometimes. Sometimes the road not taken wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. Sometimes the dream you think you desperately want to come true isn’t right for you at all. Sometimes you get lucky enough to make the *wrong* decision, and still end up in the exact right place.

Are there any dreams that “didn’t want you back”? Did sacrificing those dreams somehow get you into a good spot for something else, something more meaningful? I know it’s a difficult idea, and it took me over twenty years to see the way it all worked out. But if you’re mourning a dream, like I have been for so long, take a few moments to wonder if maybe you are on the path to something else. Maybe give that a little room to grow and see what’s there. You just never know how it might all work out…