It All Begins with a Long Forgotten Dream
Once upon a time, a little girl in had a dream.
Her dream was so urgent, so important to her, that every day she made sure her chores and homework were finished in time to run into the backyard, lie flat on her back, and watch an airplane fly overhead.
She felt free in those moments. She felt excitement, awe, and wonder. Her imagination carried her into that airplane, gliding through the sky, rushing through the sky, roaring through the sky with every restriction left somewhere below her.
And every time she watched it, she made a promise to herself.
She was going to become a pilot.
That little girl was me. I was 11 years old.
This was the early sixties. The odds of a little girl in Louisiana growing up to become a pilot weren’t particularly strong. But I wasn’t lying in the backyard considering the odds. I was watching an airplane and imagining myself flying it.
I never told anybody about that dream during my childhood. It belonged to me, and I carried it quietly until I was twenty, when I actually took flying lessons.
Turns out my eyes wouldn’t pass the test.
The flying lessons ended, but I never forgot the feeling. I never forgot what happened inside me when I watched that airplane and imagined the freedom of moving through the sky.
I got married at eighteen, and life moved fast. I didn’t think about that airplane dream for decades.
Then, during a live video stream on Substack, ( link to that video can be found at the end of this article) another woman mentioned offhandedly that she never remembers her dreams. So many people say that—that their past or their nocturnal dreams are just a blur, long forgotten. But as she spoke, that very memory resurfaced for me with startling clarity: the backyard, the airplane, the promise, and above all, the feeling.
It made me realize that catching those quiet nudges requires us to build believable trust in ourselves. When we learn to listen, we can recognize when our intuition—or our soul—is offering a clear sign, waiting for us to pay attention.
Last night, at almost eleven-thirty, I was in bed, all tucked in, when that little girl came back to me. The backyard. The airplane. The promise. And the feeling, as recognizable as if I had just come inside from watching it fly over.
Then I understood something.
I had to wait until my late sixties, but I now live the essence of that dream.
I know that freedom now. I know the excitement of imagining something and allowing myself to move toward it. I know the awe and wonder of discovering that my life can still open in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
There’s a familiarity to it that I hadn’t recognized until last night. This is the feeling I used to reach for while lying on my back in Louisiana.
For much of my life, there were responsibilities, relationships, expectations, and ideas about who I was supposed to be. I became very accomplished at doing what needed to be done. There were people to consider and obligations to meet, and I knew how to get on with it.
But that little girl had known something about herself before she had the language to explain it. She wanted room. She wanted movement. She wanted to experience the exhilaration of going somewhere she had imagined.
Now I can lie on my cloud of pillows and let my mind wander into an idea without demanding that it justify itself. I can follow the excitement of a painting, a story, a book I once insisted I would never write. I can choose how I want my life to feel and begin making choices that support it.
I trust myself to do that.
That trust gives me a freedom I spent a very long time wanting.
I find it extraordinary that a memory I hadn’t been thinking about could return so clearly and show me something about the life I’m living. All these years, I could have told you the facts: I wanted to become a pilot, I took lessons, my eyesight prevented it.
Last night, I could finally tell you the rest of the story.
The feeling I imagined as a child is here.
It makes me wonder how many women are carrying dreams they’ve filed away as things that never happened. Dreams they rarely mention because there seems to be no reason to bring them up now. A girl wanted something, life happened, and the woman she became learned to live with the unfinished story.
I’m interested in what that girl remembers.
What did she feel when she imagined her future? What was so exciting that she hurried through everything else just to spend time with it? Before she learned to consider everybody’s opinions, what did she want?
There is something deeply personal in those answers. Something worth hearing at this age, when we have the opportunity to make more of our own choices.
A woman who dreamed of dancing can still want to feel that freedom in her body. A woman who imagined seeing the world can still feel the pull of discovery. The particulars matter, and some of them can still be pursued. So does the feeling that made the dream hers in the first place.
I wouldn’t tell another woman what her childhood dream meant. I’m just now understanding my own.
I wanted to fly. I wanted it enough to arrange my afternoons around an airplane and, years later, take the lessons. I remember that desire with tenderness and respect.
And now, at seventy-one, I recognize the freedom, excitement, awe, and wonder of that dream in my everyday life. And THAT information informs how I make choices, descions and create expectations for myself.
For many retirees, this kind of exploration goes far beyond standard post-career pursuits or traditional volunteering. It provides an avenue to reconnect with what genuinely ignited intrinsic joy and aliveness earlier in life, opening up a deeply personal and authentic sense of purpose.
That little girl and I have something to talk about.
I think she would be thrilled to hear how her story is unfolding.
If that little girl you used to be is still trying to get your attention, don’t brush her off.
Most of us spent a lifetime being taught that our worth is measured by our productivity, our service to others, and our ability to keep everyone else’s expectations met. So when a quiet nudge or a childhood memory from age 10, 11, or 12 whispers about a dream we set aside, our default is to shrug it off. We tell ourselves it’s too late, it’s useless, or we simply don’t have time for such things.
But that nudge isn’t random. It’s information. It’s your inner guidance trying to lead you back to a part of yourself you left behind.
If you are ready to stop waiting for permission and start believing your own intuition again, I want to help you take that next step.
When you become a paid subscriber to this Substack, I’m gifting you my complete resource guide, Building Believable Trust in Yourself. It’s designed to help you quiet the doubt, dismantle the lie that your worth depends solely on what you produce, and finally take your own inner voice seriously.
Upgrade to Paid and Get Your Guide
Be sure to send me a message that you’ve subscribed so that I can give you the link to Building Believable Trust in Yourself.
I met that little girl in a dream. Now more than 20 years later, I am listening to her.