In My Dreams Awake

I'm always just a little bit lost.  Or maybe I'm wandering.  Speculating.  

Oh my gosh.  My aspirations are becoming tangible.  In my mind, I always put a little word pipe in front of the thought of my dreams.  Not as if they can't or won't come true.  Not in a sense that they're impossible.  Just in a sense that they're always in the future.  Out there.  Years from now.  And it freaks me out that I'm actually, really, seriously looking into it.  I have a list of real, living, in-the-flesh safari guides and they're like celebrities to me because I want to be them.  Well, I want to be me, of course.  Just in their context.  And I e-mailed them yesterday.  And asked for their help.  Because though I have an idea of how this could all work out, there are still so many mysterious parts.  And they're the experts, after all.  They've all, in some way, gotten themselves to working in Africa.  They're breathing the air and standing on the red dirt.  They're probably really grimy and I just want to be grimy too.  They're seeing wildlife day in and day out, and helping other people do it too.  I was in this context for 4 short months and I cannot even begin to describe the things I saw.  I thought I might die or get seriously injured a couple times.  Elephants and snakes can do that.  

Anyway.  

But now I have to think.  And I have to pray.  I have to pray first.  Because I have little idea.  Should I take a safari school now?  It seems inconceivable now.  Am I frozen?  Do I act now, or prepare now?  I will never feel ready, but where's the line between feeling and being?  There's this big cake in front of me.  It's so large.  And I have it but I want to eat it too.  I want family and I want adventure.  And I still believe I can.  Boom.  

Don't worry, I'm still breathing.