Unusual Channel
By Ma. Renette B. Uy

Sweet dreams are made of these

I have seen this movie of Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding, Jr. entitled, What Dreams May Come. It is one of my favorite movies. It is very colorful, beautiful but surreal and it tells us in this movie how dreams become in the personality of the leading character, Robin. In some sense it was kind of frightening but real for him. How characters and events were represented not to Robin’s expectations but in the end he understood why it should be that way. How loss of a family loved one means to his character and how he was able to overcome the tragedy in his life with help from the dreams he had. He didn’t realize it until it was almost at the end of the movie. It was a journey for him from the world of reality to fantasy, back to reality again and how he was able to save a suffering soul that is his wife from the deepest recesses of hell. For those who do not know the story, it tells of a happy family (Robin’s) until an accident happened. He had a wife, a son and a daughter. The accident caused his two children to die and his wife to feel guilty about the death. She can’t stop thinking of the “what might have been” if only she was more careful things would have happened differently. That guilt caused her to commit suicide and in effect, how Robin’s journey to dream world started.

My own experience about dreams before was kind of unsettling too. Every time I would dream and it was clear I can actually tell the story, something is bound to happen and it wasn’t nice. A member of my family would turn out sick or in a bad state. For a time, I would just think it was incidental. I didn’t quite think what happened to my dream and my family was connected until I realized it was happening more than once. Weird, huh? You’d think I was weird. Don’t worry I thought about it too. When I joined BLD I was still having those dreams and it was actually getting weirder and weirder until I started praying that it would go away because I believe whatever it was that was happening to me was not of God. With all the teachings I have learned from my BLD community, I used it to drive the bad dreams away, away and away, forever and ever. I still would have dreams but not that kind anymore, thank God!

How about dreaming to have a beautiful life? Like having a nice house, a good business with financial freedom and beautiful children? Of course, that is daydreaming. Totally different from bad dreams or the so-called nightmares that is. For now, I have beautiful children, having the dream house and being financially free, we are still working at it. Let me share some of my “should have been” with you. Come on, just give it to me even for a moment to savor my lost dreams and be proud even just for a day about my “what might have been”, okay?

I should have been:
A great interior designer if only I was brave enough to pursue it after knowing I was not allowed, that I should take up something more lucrative, blah blah, blah…

A great architect if only I had the courage to step into the Architecture Building of UST to get an application form. I almost did though because I was actually there! However, after seeing all those guys lined up in front of the building, I made an “about face” and headed for the nearest exit gate. Why? I came from an exclusive school for girls (so what?!!!) and it was culture shock for me seeing all those guys, so sue me!

A great doctor if only I have the patience to memorize what needed to be memorized, however, I have such a bad and short memory span.

A good teacher if only I was not terrorized by my strict teachers way back my elementary days. I thought then it was part of being a teacher to terrorize students. Lame, huh?

A famous gourmet chef working for an international hotel if only I pursued studies in culinary arts somewhere in romantic Paris.
A lounge act singer if only I know how to groove like my favorite singer, Patty Austin.

A good dancer like Bob Fosse if only I have his ingenuity and the figure to be one.

And last but not the least and my very first dream as a matter of fact: A flight stewardess if only I was not an inch shy of the height requirement.

It’s a lot, huh? Oh yeah! Dreams can come true as the cliché goes; who knows mine can still come true. Not all dreams are sweet, some may be bittersweet. Dreams can be good if only to inspire us. I do not hope for nightmares for it ruins the day upon waking up. However, if nightmares come, pray so it will go away. Hey, from the above dreams or my “should have been”, somehow I was able to make up for some of it. For instance, I may not have been a great interior designer but I have an eye for mixing colors of some sort though it is just one aspect of a designer’s eye. I may not have been a good architect but I am married to someone who took up BS Architecture in college however, he preferred to be in the field of computer graphics. Not bad, huh? There’s more…I may not have been a good doctor however, I was not really serious in thinking to be one anyway, boohoo! I may not have been a good teacher however, as a career I became a trainer (sales training, customer service, marketing, office management, etc). I am still a trainer, I do free lance training for John Clements Consultants, Inc. I may not have been a famous gourmet chef however, I am a gourmet chef to my husband and my kids. Not a bad client, they eat what I cook. I may not have been a lounge act singer however, I don’t mind singing inside the bathroom. Of course, I get to sing Praises now so it is not bad at all! I may not have been a good dancer like Bob Fosse however, I know I can dance the swing like I invented it, hah! And I may not have been a flight stewardess however, no regrets because if I made it as one, I wouldn’t have met my husband (ganda points yun! hehehe)
Wondering why in my every “should have been” there is the word “good” before it? Well, if you want to be somebody, you might as well end up a good one, don’t you think so?
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die. Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

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I would like to extend my condolences to my good friend , Vivian Suansing and to her family for the death of Ivan. My sincerest prayers to you and your family. I know God have a special place for Ivan in His Kingdom.

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Congratulations and best wishes to Pia Nava and Jundy Gueco on their wedding this coming October 8, 2005.