Dream

I live in Portugal and I play bass in a band. In fact, the entire dream is in Portuguese. I can't actually confirm this because there weren't any subtitles and I don't actually speak Portuguese.

Our music is really simple one-note, like songs that you use to teach kindergarteners the alphabet, not that there's anything wrong with that per se. It's also a little whiny. Not that there's anything wrong with that per se either. Basically, our music is crap. Our first album was really cutting-edge, and our second album was pretty good too, but now we just keep producing the same crap over and over again and people eat it up. Our concerts sell out venues and the press is always camped outside the recording studio asking me who designed my shoes and who I got drinks with last night.

It's not that I hate what I do for a living; it's just I don't feel creatively challenged and truthfully, it's eating away at my soul. I feel like I've been wearing someone else's tight, smelly clothes for too long and I just want to feel comfortable in my own skin, in my own life. But Tinny, Meena and Pablo, my bandmates - they actually believe in what we do, and they're like my family. I've known them since high school. They're really sincere about the whole thing and they actually feel creatively challenged. This is what they've always wanted and they are fulfilled. Which alienates me from them even further. Also, the fact that the public loves us makes me feel like a fraud. But I can't strike out on my own, because I don't have the skills or the aptitude to create my own musical vision. And besides, if I did leave, I think it would wreck Tinny, Meena and Pablo. Who else do we have in this city, in this world, who understands our journey or what we do? This is their dream but I'm a part of it. Once upon a time it was my dream, but now it's not. The problem is, I don't have another one. And besides, is there anything worse than ripping someone's dream out of their hands, especially if you helped build it?

In the evenings I stand on the balcony of my apartment and watch the sun set over Lisbon. My apartment is my sanctuary, and it's beautiful. All light and windows and mid-century modern furniture and hand-blown colored bottles of glass.

It's not that bad, I tell myself as I chain-smoke.

I ask myself what I'm going to do over and over again. The thing is, I've been asking myself this question so long that I can't even hear the answer anymore.