On revisiting the past and realizing one’s dreams

With high school graduation and my birthday within two weeks of each other, I tend to be reflective during the month of June, so I hope you’ll indulge me just a little.

Last week, Hammonton High School graduated its 127th class. I was a member of the 100th graduating class, and earlier this week I turned 45 years old.

I don’t know where the time went.

Periodically, I go into my basement and thumb through my senior yearbook. I look at the faces of people I’ve now known for almost 40 years—how young we were, how fresh and full of promise—and I linger, perhaps longer than I should, on my own, thinking of my life then and the life that I envisioned for myself.

According to the goals that I listed in the senior directory, I wanted to become a computer programmer. I wanted to write the perfect symphony and have it performed by the London Philharmonic. I wanted to take my friends on a cruise around the world.

I had lofty dreams—then life happened.

But that’s not to say that’s a bad thing.

Sure, I didn’t become a computer programmer (precisely six hours into my second semester as a computer science major, I marched my happy hind parts to the registrar’s office, changed my major to English and never looked back) and I don’t know that I’ll ever write the perfect symphony, but I suppose there is still time to take that cruise.

Maybe.

My graduating class has lost its share of members: some to illness, some to accidents, some to violence and far too many to addiction. Now, I see my classmates more often at viewings and funerals than I do at reunions, so maybe I better get to work on that cruise.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking part is the potential we all had, and how each of us had such hope for the future. It’s a quality often found in the young, but not so often as life goes on.

My wife, God bless her, is a dreamer. She looks around the house and the yard, coming up with blueprints and schematics, and dreaming of this addition or that renovation. She talks of places she wants to go and things she wants to see.

Then she asks me what my dreams are, and I don’t have an answer.

Somewhere during the course of the last 27 years, I stopped dreaming—but I think it’s because my life has been so full already.

I’ve traveled across Europe. I’ve loved and been loved. I have children and grandchildren and a wife who adores me—and whom I adore in return.

I’ve shaken hands with Adam West, William Shatner and Neil Gaiman (and am currently engaged in a confoundingly bizarre poke war on Facebook—who even knew that was still a thing?—with one of the stars of the Superman movies; 67 thus far and counting).

I helped start a newspaper—and I’m here 26 years later (with 18 years off in-between). I earned a master’s degree and was a college professor. I’ve published books, and gotten to work with some of my writerly idols. I’ve been a guest at science-fiction conventions.

I had my own store. I opened a casino. I tended bar. I farmed.

Now I take care of a cemetery.

I don’t think I’ve ever really stopped long enough to take the time to dream about the future.

I’ve been so wrapped up in taking opportunities as they come and riding them out until the next thing rolls along, checking them off as I go.

Teacher? Check. What’s next?

Star Trek comic book expert? Check. What’s next?

Now, here I am, on the eve of 45. Writer. Caretaker. Husband, father and grandfather. And I don’t know what’s next—nor what I even want to be next—but I’m sure I’ll take that head-on and ride that out, too.

It’s hard for me to dream, I think, because I believe that dreaming requires some level of dissatisfaction with one’s lot in life. Dreaming implies that one hopes for improvement.

But I’m happy.

I enjoy my work. I enjoy my home. I enjoy my family.

Sure, there are bad times—that’s life—but they pass. They always pass. And when they do, I still have my work, my home and my family.

It’s hard to dream of anything better.

Joseph F. Berenato holds a Master’s in Writing from Rowan University and has been writing for The Hammonton Gazette—to varying degrees—since 1997. He is a trustee with the Historical Society of Hammonton and a caretaker at Oak Grove Cemetery, where he also serves as board secretary. You can email him at jberenato@hammontongazette.com or find him on social media at @JFBerenato.