When God made man and woman, He created each person’s mold to survive for a lifetime, eternally resistant to change.
No matter how ardently we seek to alter our fundamental selves, our mold unfailingly snaps back to the way it always was.
That was the case last night when a once-vibrant relationship sailed onto the rocks and sank — in an unlikely setting, the Inland Empire community of Redlands.
One saw the shipwreck coming and warned. The Other consistently fended off reality. He drowned in the shipwreck.
Age never is a player in this constantly repeated human drama. You don’t change, pal. Repeat after me.
Born a Dreamer, die a Dreamer. For the party of the first part, a remarkable woman of multiple gifts, born a Realist, ever a Realist.
Dreamers coddle a lifetime habit of looking askance when undeniable reality scribbles in jumbo-sized letters across the sky, “The End Is Near. Next stop: The End.”
Even as the cheery lights of Redlands, eyed from the 10 Freeway, twinkled in the shrinking distance, the Dreamer’s cerebral ballast never wavered.
A happy ending was but one freeway off-ramp away.
A child, perhaps, would have known better. But that is a crucial distinction between any Dreamer and any child.
The former’s faith in sunny outcomes never falters, no matter how many defeats stack up. The latter’s grasp of reality tells him that sunny endings are the exclusive property of fairy tales.
Realists prosper.
Dreamers pine.
Especially for Dreamers, such as the author, the dilemma ever is:
- Focus on the spectacular good times or
- Dwell on funereal aspects of Chapter Last.
The technicolor good times insist on being heard – replayed and replayed – not only first but exclusively.
There are many to count, and an enormous pictorial record in case, G-d forbid, doubt ever would crop up.
Happily for her, Realists prosper.
Sadly for him, Dreamers are re-reminded that G-d does not change what G-d has made.
Thanks to you for memories I will cradle and cherish.
