As a person, I have always been a bit of a dreamer.  When I was young, if I wasn’t curled up somewhere with a book, I was day-dreaming.  I dreamt of more interesting times and places, of fighting dragons atop fiery mountains, of wielding a lightsaber and surviving Order 66, of being a silk-clothed princess benevolently welcoming my guests to a ball, of being an adventurer with a really cool cloak and comrades who would die for me and I for them.  My favorite book for years was Anne of Green Gables.  I read it over and over, so much did I relate to its heroine.  I, like Anne Shirley, grew frustrated with the mundane activities of daily life, instead craving romance and adventure.  Perhaps it was partially escapism, the turbulence of my parents’ marriage and my home life driving me to seek fascinating, more beautiful places, where I could be whatever I wanted, and the endings were nearly always happy.  But I think it was more greatly due to my personality.

     I’ve always thought that the life of a pirate captain (the good, friendly kind, like in Pirates of the Caribbean, not the bad kind that rapes and pillages) would be a lovely way to live.  Sailing on the open sea, with the wind in your hair, leading a trustworthy crew singing sea shanties and drinking rum.  It would be especially great to sail into unknown waters, discovering countries uncharted and untouched, having countless adventures.   I am also egotistical enough to enjoy the thought of being called “captain”.

That is the dream, with one exception: the only thing I have ever imagined being better than being the captain of a ship would be meeting a man thrice as qualified to lead a crew as I am.  A wise companion who, with me as his first mate, would guide the course of our ship, of our lives, with sobriety, confidence, and goodness.  And we would work together and sail through many stormy seas and through nights so dark you begin to wonder if dawn will ever come.  Ultimately, through great effort, great faith, and great love, we would make it through and be able to look back on the friends and decisions we made, on our children and our children’s children, and to be satisfied, indeed, overjoyed at the life we had built.  Then, as we faced forward to the Sun of Righteousness Which Never Sets, our ship would learn to fly, and we would sail away through the stars, together forever.

photo cred: James Wheeler

Perhaps I am naïve.  No, I know that I am.  I long for wisdom, but I am too young, too inexperienced to understand.  Certainly, I do not want my described vision to be conflated with a belief in “soulmates” or with a notion that two people must remain in love for a marriage to be successful. Nonetheless, I believe in true love and in devotion for life to one person.

I am not one of those hapless individuals pining for a mate because they need affirmation or cannot handle being alone.  I have never yet been in a relationship, and I am content with waiting still.  Or perhaps I shall find I have nothing to wait for at all, and, betaking myself to some remote monastery, I shall spend my days in prayer, obedience, and charity.  I could hardly consider that a loss in any sense.  Well do I love my solitude, and it would take someone very impressive to change that.

I am nearly nineteen years old now.  My dreaminess has matured perhaps.  I find myself admiring the simple beauty of doing household chores, rather bemoaning their ordinariness.  My idle daydreaming has morphed into a socially acceptable form called “being a writer”.  The great part about being a writer is you don’t even have to write, you can merely drink a lot of coffee while staring at your laptop contemplatively or looking up name meanings for character depth.

I do not think my romanticism is a virtue.  In fact, it could become detrimental to me if I rely on it too heavily.  But it also has given me a deep appreciation for life, for every little place and thing in which beauty can be found.  I don’t have to be on an actual pirate ship to see wonderous things and sing with my friends.  I don’t have to have to live in a high fantasy setting to live fantastic a good story or do awesome battle.  The wonderous things may be dew drops on dandelions, the songs with friends may be off-key Hotel California, and the battles may be against my own inner demons: my slothfulness, my doubt, or my pride.  Whether I marry or not, whether I stay in one place all my life or go out and see the world, my life IS a romance story, in a humble way.  So I do not consider myself a hopeless romantic, pining for an existence that cannot be. I am a hopeful romantic, and I will continue to hope until the end of my days.

–A.P.S