Speaking The Language Of Shared Dreams

​I don't know if I physically heard it or if my intuition picked up on it, but I received this late night text message from Elliott. 

"I doubt you're awake but this game is crazy."

He was right. I wasn’t awake. Anyone who knows me knows I'd been sound asleep for hours. But one way or another - maybe love - that message woke me up and I caught the end of Game 7 of the World Series. 

There was something deeply satisfying about watching it, knowing that he too, a couple hundred miles away at Virginia Tech, was watching. Somehow, in a world that feels too distant to me, the two of us were sharing the same moment, the same awe, the same game.

After I told him I was now awake and watching, he responded: "we're gonna be up all night." I felt joy in that, mainly because I felt like he too felt joy in that. Like maybe that was the point. 

Sports do that. They pull us together - father and son, fanbases, strangers who will never meet but for a few hours feel like they belong to the same community. The World Series MVP from Japan couldn’t speak a word of English without a translator, but he didn’t need to. His teammates loved him, and he loved them back. 

That kind of love doesn’t require language.

I found it interesting that so many of the post-game interviews, no matter what the language, were filled with one phrase: “I dreamed of this moment as a kid.”

Maybe it’s our dreams that unite us. Latin, Japanese, White, Black - I don’t think we dream in color, but in aspirations.

We dream in hope.

In longing.

In that pull toward something bigger than us.

And maybe that’s the truest kind of connection, not just sharing the game, but sharing the dream. The chance for grown kids to bring each other's childhood kid dreams to life. 

Isn't that often the moral of sports - that the most magical dreams are the dreams we share, chase, and celebrate as one?

Yep, I was sound asleep. 

But sometimes it's worth being lured from our dreams to be reminded of the magic of dreams. And when you can share that reminder with your kid, well, there's no lack of magic in that.