On a chilly winter afternoon in 1984, two giddy teenage girls traveled an hour to the nearest movie theater that was playing the much-anticipated (by them) movie “Hard to Hold” starring the man they were hopelessly devoted to: Rick Springfield. These two 14-year-old girls sat excitedly through the movie featuring their favorite heartthrob…twice…in a row.
Thirty-one years later, now married, busy moms to teenagers, they reunited to view another movie. This time they drove themselves instead of relying on a big brother to drive them. They couldn’t sit straight through two viewings (do they even allow that any more?) because they had busy lives to get back to and wanted to spend the rest of their time catching up on each other’s lives. They took silly pictures, laughed out loud, and soaked in every precious minute of it.
This time, Rick wasn’t a playing a young, footloose, cocky rock star as he had in 1984. This time, he was a (much) older rocker sharing the silver screen set in a bar with Meryl Streep.
As I (one of those not-so-14 any more girls) sat watching the movie, a lesson started to unfold. Two lessons actually.
Ricki (played by Meryl) had a dream to be a rock star. She had married, gave birth to three children, then left them all to pursue her dream, we learned. Now, here she was, decades after having sacrificed being a major part of her family’s lives in favor of playing regularly at a small bar in California, barely getting by financially, fighting off a romance with bandmate Greg (played by Rick), thousands of miles from what used to be home. Maybe it sounds a little campy but…
But when crisis arises, Ricki returns to her now-remarried first husband’s home to help her only daughter. Her return comes at a price: she has to face those she left behind and it isn’t a pleasant reunion. Ricki is met with plenty of hostility and brutal honesty.
But we get a glimpse of insight as well. At one point, she and her ex discuss her choice to trade family for her dream, and her ex-husband argues, “I thought we were your dream.”
“I can’t have two dreams?” Ricki cries.
Her ex’s answer is a painful no.
Although I could never agree with her choice of music over her own children, I found myself wanting her to go back in time and stand up for herself, to fight for her dream, demand it.
Couldn’t Ricki have fought for her own dreams, both of them, instead of having to choose music or motherhood?
My children are my dearest dream. To be with them, engaged in their lives, be their confidantes and their greatest cheerleader…that is my sweetest dream. I would abandon any and all other dreams for them. Every other dream I have…being a published author, world travel…they’re a distant second to my #1 dream of motherhood.
But I should still be able to chase those other dreams as well. I just don’t ever want it ever to come at a cost.
Ricki paid a monumental price to pursue her dream.
Here are the two lessons, light for a Monday:
Stay.
Chase your dreams.
Stay: Your children need you and leaving them will cause damage that no one and no thing can ever fully repair. And you need your children. Even Ricki, chasing her dream, was drowning in the pain she had caused (to her children and herself) while chasing her own dream. That’s time you can never fix and never get back, so stay.
Chase your dreams! Being a mother and being a woman aren’t mutually exclusive! We can have more than one dream and pursue them both. True enough we might have to follow our dreams of singing or acting or writing or finishing school or whatever it is, at a slower pace because we have babies to raise. Maybe we write at night when the kids are sleeping or play in a band on the weekend. Or take music lessons. Or whatever chasing your dream looks like. It’ll take work and schedule finagling and maybe even the help of your spouse, mother or friend once in awhile. But with God’s help, you’ll figure it out. He planted those dreams in you and equipped you to fulfill them when He knit you in your mother’s womb. So be assured, He will guide your dream.
If Ricki Randazzo/Meryl was 60-whatever still rocking it out in a band with Greg/Rick Springfield chasing after her, certainly we can have more than one dream.
Keep dreaming…chase those God-sized dreams!
