Chasing Rainbows

Yesterday I found myself with a half day off so I made a quick trip to my hometown.  As I was leaving to head home I got stuck behind a string of slower cars.  This forced me to slow down a bit at spot in the road where I would have been speeding up like a horse to the barn at the end of a long trail ride.  I caught myself looking left to a familiar turnoff but it took me a moment to realize why it was so familiar.  Suddenly I was seventeen again.  Summer was in full swing and me, my boyfriend Johnny and our best friend Joey were riding around listening to  music just after a thunderstorm had passed through.   As we looked to the south we saw the most beautiful rainbow.   It spanned the sky and it looked like the end was so close  that we took off to find it,  because well, you know, we just had to see if we could find that pot of gold.  

We turned down the road and wound around until we could see the rainbow dipping down from the sky and into the woods to our right.   The end of it couldn't have been more than a couple hundred feet from the road so we pulled off, climbed the fence and trekked in.   But by the time we reached the spot where the end of the rainbow should have been, we couldn't see it anymore.    We laughed and joked about how the leprechaun that guards the pot of gold had moved it so we couldn't find it.   But of course there isn't a pot of gold.... or is there?   

We may never know really, but something about this memory stirred me.    Achieving our dreams is a lot like chasing rainbows.    We pursue them, make goals to reach them, and sometimes even realize them.  But it is seldom easy and sometimes we get discouraged because we get to the place where we the end of our rainbow should be and it's not there.      And the thing is, just because you don't see the pot of gold doesn't mean that it isn't there.     Along the way, things interact with our journey, veering us off course and sending us to a spot that can be slightly or way off our target.    Timing and circumstance can take us in  different direction and divert us from the pursuit of our dreams, but we shouldn't let that stop us from chasing them, just like at seventeen we didn't let it stop us from looking for that pot of gold.

As we grow older we sometimes become more cynical.   I am reminded that we don't have to be.   The things that inspired us when we were younger are still here every day;   Rainbows, the smell of the rain on a summer' day, morning dew on a spider's web, the sound of the ocean in a conch shell...

I am still in awe every time I see the sunset or look up at the star filled night sky.    I am convinced if I don't lose that awestruck wonder I had as a child, I will never grow old and I will alway be able to keep sight of my dreams.   So, I for one am going to keep chasing rainbows, even when they seem just beyond my grasp.

Peace!