As a boat travels it leaves a wake, waves the result of the boat cutting through the water, disturbing the tranquility of the surface. The waves spread outward from the source, continue ad infinitum or until some other force causes them to stop. Creating the wake is unavoidable and the size of the waves is directly proportional to the mass of the object cutting through the water and the speed of the object. Sometimes that wake results in gentle waves lapping a sandy shore while at other times the force of the wake can overturn a boat.
Pursuing one's dreams is typically portrayed with more than a hint of romanticism, dream quests tend to be romanticism epitomized. Pursuing one's dreams is seen as the quest of the brave, the actions of a conqueror, the adventure of someone with eyes firmly set upon the future instead of stuck in the present or, worse, a victim of the past. For the dreamer, the world is a blank slate into which the dream will be etched. However, the pursuit of a dream is not only the journey of the dreamer. There is another side to dream pursuit and that is the story of those left behind, those for whom the dream brings emptiness instead of fulfillment, sadness not joy, those for whom the dream is decidedly unromantic.
I learned that the pursuit of one's dreams also has a wake, a wake that affects everyone it touches, a wake that can also wreak havoc on the lives of those tossed and turned when the wake crashes into their world. I am experiencing first hand that the pursuit of my dream, which is living and working in a foreign land, has created a dream wake which, for another, is akin to being in a boat that is capsizing and there are no life preservers.
I have learned that pursuing one's dream can create casualties of those caught in the dream wake.
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