Some people would like to win the lottery or be spotted by a bigshot movie director and find fame and fortune on the silver screen. Some people would rather play the cut throat world of business and earn their success on the backs of others.

I know that these things (except perhaps winning the lottery) are a bit beyond my grasp. I have not spent the years chasing these dreams, so I must let them pass me by. And perhaps the odds of them ever happening are on par with winning the lottery. My mother did the math once. It's something like 1,000,000! (the ! denotes multiplying each number like 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 (and keep counting until you get to 1,000,000) so it's a very large number that can easily boggle the mind- and maybe I'm easily Boggled. I hate that game) to one.

But what I really want that I know I truly cannot have is to go back to the wonderful summer when I was 5. My best friend at the time used to propose to me every other day, coinciding with when my mother drove us to day care, and she gave us flavored tootie rolls to eat on the way there or back, and he would tell me how much he loved me for them, and I thought that was a fine idea of marriage and of love. But on the other days, he told me he hated me, because his mother drove, and grumbled at it instead of bribing us to be good with sweets. But we got to ride behind the back seat of their VW bug, and I've had a fondness for the car ever since. I would giggle with him and we would hide from his mom so she could not see us. And I would tell him I loved him and didn't care if he hated me or not. I had cable knit blue sweater that I tried to wear every day regardless of the temperature.

Sometimes I dream of the day care center and its extra high door knobs. I wonder how much of the place was real, and how many rooms I have imagined. Did the nap room really stretch on for every with nothing but cots as far as the eye could see? And were all the blankets powder blue? Was there a kitchen that I could only enter when invited and a fishbowl play room with windows on three sides, none of which showed out of doors? Or do I just dream it still?

I want to find out. But I don't remember the names of anyone except my friend, Matthew Hawkins. I wrote him, after we moved at the end of that summer, but he never wrote back. I don't think he knew how to read. ANDICOULDNOTWRITEBETTERTHANTHIS.

I wish my parents had saved a copy of that letter. I would find it very poignant now. I think I promised to come back some day, find him, and marry him. But at 5, I'm sure it wasn't a binding promise. I do miss him sometimes in my dreams, and I wonder what became of him.

I wonder what became of my youth. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeping forth still.

But I dream. I still dream.  ¶ 10:01 PM