I’ve always had a fairly simplistic vision of the life I hoped to live. As I grew older, of course, experience and a deeper understanding of myself have led to a more well-rounded vision, with layers built through goals and bucket lists. But the root is the same, and I’ve held this since high school. 

The vision was simple: all I wanted was the freedom of a calm morning. Having a busy and tumultuous upbringing that warranted little leisure, this was a distant dream at times. But I want to be clear about three aspects of this vision because they are important. My calm morning was defined by 1. a beautiful morning outside in a (presumably my) backyard, 2. a coffee in my hand and 3. a joint in the other. Okay, before you say what the hell, I’ll explain that I have never smoked more weed than I did from like 15-18. So rightfully, it made the cut. 

These are important to note because they’ve been solidly placed in this vision, both implying that I have this sort of time to be there and likely have nothing to do but address these basic desires. So, it’s a simple vision, but it means a lot more than that, too. It has been a guiding light in some strange way.

Though, like I said, this vision has morphed over time into more specific iterations, it's that vision I still see the most. So why do we care about this right now? Well, I was sitting on my deck on this beautiful summer morning with my breakfast, coffee and, decidedly, a nice crisp joint. 

It dawned on me far later than I’d like to admit that I was checking most of those boxes I set in my teens. Simultaneously, I realized I’ve probably experienced this countless times by now. Despite these boxes being checked, it is quite obvious to me that this experience and my original vision do not look the same. The image I had in my head involves a garden, and I am on a deck. In the ideal, I was sitting at a table, but there is no table. Weird specifics, but enough to make these visions different and allow for the comparison to go unnoticed.

So this all happens,  which, by all definitions, aligns with this ideal of my life, and I begin to wonder how many of these moments I have missed. I think my answer is a lot. It is not simply the incongruence of details that has led to this unnoticed dream, but also the layering of my ideals as I’ve gotten older and the disconnects between those, too.

I never, in my dreams, realized that I would be here with different worries, different, more specific visions of what I would want from those moments. The original dreams were simple, two-dimensional. The first issue is that it was a far too simplistic an idea. I forgot the three-dimensional realities of humanity and the reality that those dream experiences would accompany the relatively disillusioned world of humans. Silly me, I forgot that I would be there. 

Similarly, the second issue was that this vision was a singular event, and despite being emblematic of a wider pattern in life, it was not conceptualized that way, even though I meant it to be. I imagined it far more literally than I should have, and it contributed to the inability to detect it upon its arrival. 

Now, I’m not going to tear my dream apart because I believe this legacy of my teenage mind is valuable. Both in that it provides insight into what I’ve wanted more consistently, and because this legacy has informed entirely what is happening right now. It is easy to make the past a scapegoat, but I want to take more accountability here. Instead of being the fault of this poorly framed idea, it is my responsibility in the here and now to make it make sense. What have I learned about life since? 

So, I’ve learned what that vision actually looks like, and hopefully, now it will be easier to identify. I hope now that I’ve met it, in its practical and lived manifestation, that I can recognize it when it is there. Can I remove the perfectionism from the daydream? Can I remember that all that is to happen to me will happen to me, and be subject to the laws of my existence? Who the fuck knows.

But I’m going to try to reshape this vision while I smoke a joint and sip my coffee. And I have this freedom for reasons I never expected. The scenery is a little strange, but the root of it is the same. Life will always respond to the call of what is central to our requests, even if we cannot recognize it at first.