Requiem for a Dream

I am sitting in my hotel room eating soup out of the can crying at an episode of "Make it or Break It," a ridiculous drama on ABC family for teenagers. But, because it's about gymnastics I just have to watch. I'm sure a good part of it is just that I am completely over tired from the 12-14 hour days I've been putting in at work this week, but part of me regrets giving up the sport when I did. It was my first and greatest passion. It is a wonderful and dangerous thing to have have something that totally consumes you. At night when I'm falling asleep I picture myself doing a bar routine: whipping around the bar, casting up and balancing for an instant in that perfect handstand, letting go and flying through the air before nailing the landing. I miss that perfect mastery of my body. Running is good, but it isn't the same. Gymnastics demands all of your attention, every second. What does happen to a dream deferred? I don't think it does dry up like a raisin in the sun.