Would it be better if I was someone else?

Violent delights of daydreaming can have dire consequences

I’ve been daydreaming a lot recently. As my head is pretty much already permanently in the clouds, I’m borderline concerned to be honest. I might float off into space never to be seen again. Wonder when the next trip to Mars is… Room for a little one, Bezos?

I invent conversations that’ll never happen. Rehearsing arguments I could never lose. I create monologues philosophising the meaning of life. Imagined declarations of love delivered flawlessly in my mind to an audience of none. I look back on the ‘sliding doors’ moments of my life, with the hindsight of knowing exactly what came next. I think about what might have happened if I picked a different path. Where would my life be now if I did? Would things look rosier? 

Credit Art street by MediBang | coikoi1

Daydreaming can be a dangerous game to play. Escapism can end up taking us so far away from ourselves that we start to doubt we’re really living the right life at all. We’re removed from reality. Would it be better if I wasn’t who I am right now and at some point along the way, I’d become someone else entirely? 

Sylvia Path’s voice rings in my head often. Louder when I contemplate who I am. 

“I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”

Every time I read this it takes my breath away with such brutality it’s like I’ve actually been winded. It will forever be one of the most relatable and devastating things I’ll ever read. 

We are paralysed by the choices we have and the endless possibilities of what life could look like. We inject the perfect worlds of other people on social media straight into our veins. We chastise ourselves for all that we lack. Shining harsh floodlights on all our mistakes and failures. The chances we didn’t take. We have no empathy for ourselves and take no prisoners. 

When daydreaming crosses the line from imagination into reality, we risk disregarding our lovely little lives for something unattainable. We gloss over the minutiae and the million little things that matter. We forget all the lessons we learned from failure and the reasons why we made the choices we did at the time. Make it all look so simple and easy. Like we also have all the time in the world to excel at everything.

Maybe having some parameters when it comes to daydreaming wouldn’t go a miss. I’ve been thinking about future versions of myself, trying to retain as much of who I am now as I can. I can’t turn back the clocks and change what’s already happened. It’s just me as I am. Who could I be? I’ve circled back a lot to ideas about who I’ll be this autumn. I’m snuggled up in oversized knitted jumpers, albeit I couldn’t imagine anything worse right now. Curled up reading books, a roaring fire cracking out the corner of my eye. Grey skies break into rain that lashes hard against my window. I think this one is largely doable. It’s not exactly a vision of extreme grandeur or experience. Dare I say, it could even be a dream come true. 

I’ll never stop. I simply wouldn’t be able to. My brain is always on, drifting off somewhere into the abyss. I am a daydreamer. But I will keep trying hard not to get carried away with a fantasy. 

I went for a swim at Brockwell Lido. The water lapped hard into my face, stinging my eyes and threatening to pull out my contacts. The noise of the waves drowned out all my thoughts. All that remained was a rhythm of the here and now. I was fully engaged with my surroundings and there was absolutely nowhere else right then I wanted to be. 

I was floating, but I was grounded. Tethered back to the Earth once again. I belong. I am me. My life is enough.