I awoke this morning from an interesting dream. I was filling out some kind of long, cavernous form and I got tripped up by one question: “Do you have private health insurance or state health insurance?”

The question bugged me, and I remember specifically thinking about it for a long time. I rolled it over in my head. Which one did I have? Then I looked over the options for the state program and it asked if I had purchased a specific plan (if so, which one) or if I payed into the general fund. If I payed into the general fund, how much did I invest, etc. It occurred to me that once in high school I’d won a scholarship for high test scores, and that fund had won me some interest over the years . . . perhaps that counted?

After trying to figure it out and being unable to, I decided to call an information line. The voice I spoke to sounded like a run-down shell of a human being which told me with a distinct boredness that the state program was basically the same as the private program, but run through the state. I said I loathed private insurance companies from the core of my soul, and I would like to give the state program a try.

If you follow my feed on facebook, you know I have a lot of crazy dreams. Mostly my dreams are about dragons, mad scientists or heroines on horseback who fly through a moonlit sky and save the day. This dream, though, was so real, and it felt like so many dull experiences I’ve had in my life . . . but when I awoke I realized it wasn’t real and never would be.

I admire visionaries like Dr. King who have seemingly impossible dreams of a better world, dreams they work toward in the face of unbelievable adversity, because I could never be like that. It’s not that I don’t have the strength to fight people or do things outside the social norm; I don’t have the strength to keep my hope alive in such a cruel world. Once, when I was a senior in high school, I stood up in front of hundreds of people at the local university and asked senator Fred Thompson how we could feel justified in demanding the disarmament of other countries when we are the only country to have used nuclear power on another nation during a time of war. I can stand up and speak out, but the thought of letting myself hope just for an instant that a much better world is possible and we refuse it makes me shudder. I hear about things that are happening in my country such as the recent supreme court ruling that allows corporations to buy congress, and it cuts into me. I feel like a battered and beaten runner who tries to keep moving even though suffering from brutal injuries.

Maybe I am simply not a big-picture thinker, and there are people in the world right now planning for a better America. Maybe before I die I will see a portion of my dream realized, but until then, I will say “I had a dream.”