You know…

I found myself stood at the gate this morning.

Not going anywhere in particular.

Just… there.

Hands resting on the top rail, looking down the path, thinking about how often we seem to spend our lives being pulled in two directions.

One way is memory.

The other is dream.

Memory has weight to it.

It carries names, faces, voices, rooms, roads, mistakes, laughter, people we loved, people we lost, places that somehow still feel close even when years have passed.

You can almost reach out and touch some of it.

A smell.
A song.
A phrase somebody used to say.
A place you haven’t seen for years.

And suddenly you’re back there.

For a few seconds at least.

That’s the strange thing about memory.

It doesn’t always ask permission.

It just turns up.

Sometimes gently.

Sometimes like a knock at the door you weren’t expecting.

And I suppose, as we get older, memory becomes a bigger part of who we are.

Not because we’re living in the past.

But because we’ve simply gathered more of it.

More days.

More people.

More stories.

More moments that mattered.

Dreams are different.

Dreams don’t have any proof.

They haven’t happened yet.

There are no photographs.

No familiar voices.

No certainty.

A dream asks you to believe in something that might still be waiting further down the road.

And that can be harder than it sounds.

Because memory says:

“I know this happened.”

A dream says:

“Trust me.”

That takes a bit of courage.

Especially after life has knocked a few corners off you.

There comes a time when it would be very easy to decide that dreaming belongs to younger people.

People with longer roads ahead of them.

But I don’t think that’s true.

I think the dream changes.

That’s all.

Maybe it isn’t about climbing mountains anymore.

Maybe it’s about seeing somewhere you’ve always wanted to see.

Writing something down before it disappears.

Making a song.

Starting again.

Spending more time with someone you love.

Trying something you thought you’d missed your chance to try.

Or simply waking up tomorrow and hoping it turns out to be a good day.

There’s still a dream in that.

A quieter one, perhaps.

But a dream all the same.

And I wonder whether we make a mistake when we think we have to choose between memory and dream.

Because perhaps they need each other.

Memory tells us where we’ve been.

Dream gives us somewhere to go.

One keeps hold of the people and places that made us.

The other reminds us that the story isn’t finished yet.

So maybe that’s what I was doing at the gate this morning.

Standing somewhere between the two.

Looking back along one path.

Looking forward along another.

And feeling grateful that I can still see both.

Because I don’t want to forget what’s behind me.

Far from it.

There are too many people there.

Too many moments I’d never willingly give up.

But I don’t want to spend so long looking backwards that I miss whatever is coming towards me either.

So perhaps the trick is this:

Look back with a bit of gratitude.

Look forward with a bit of hope.

And then…

when you’re ready…

just gently push the gate open.

There’s still some road left.

And I’d quite like to see where it goes.