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The dream looks different when it arrives. My thoughts simmered into this conclusion a few months ago as I stared out the window of, incidentally, the same coffee shop I am writing this column from.

The combination of coffee and absent-minded people watching is the perfect conditions to cultivate the philosophical ramblings that bounce around like bubbles in the corners of one’s mind until they explode into some poetic declaration that makes you smile sagely into your cappuccino as though you’ve solved the universe.

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But we’re not talking about philosophy today; we’re talking about dreams.

Those dreams that cling like stubborn coffee residue to the bottom of the mug. The dreams we carry so long they become sacred folklore woven into the core of who we are. The perpetual promise of who we could become. Whenever we’re ready. Just … not yet.

There’s something beautifully hopeful about a dream that remains untouched by reality.

I’ve been thinking about the phrase a lot lately. The theme has cropped up in many different shapes and sizes, sending it floating to the forefront of my mind like an intrusive algorithm-controlled pop-up ad. But let’s start at the beginning.

The story that premises this column dates back to my teenage years. I can’t recall my exact age, but it had to be old enough to have feet large enough to fill an adult size, or UK 39 — as I memorised for the purposes of what turned out to be a lifelong search for a pair of retro roller skates, as I called them.

“The ones with the brake in the front and two wheels on each side,” is how I described the object of my desire.

I asked everyone I knew from the previous generations, who may have had a pair hiding in a dusty box in their garage. Stores only stocked them for children. Probably as some sort of training wheels before moving on to the more training wheels before progressing to the serious business of rollerblades — all the wheels in a row, requiring actual balance. Real do-or-die stakes.

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I was left to scour the likes of second-hand stores and thrift stores online. Once, I found a pair in my size for sale on Instagram of all places, terribly overpriced for a horrid shade of yellow, but I was too desperate to be picky. I asked the seller if she could keep them for me if she didn’t get another buyer, but alas, there must have been someone out there who shared my passion, equally desperate enough to settle for the ugliest pair and had a few more bucks in the bank to secure their bid.

As the years progressed, I left it up to fate. The romantic in me, reimagining my own version of Cinderella, would joke and say, instead of a ring, I’d marry the man who would propose to me with a pair of size 6 retro skates — obviously, they would have to be pretty — stylishly retro. Like, Barbie’s roller skates. I have high standards.

Thankfully, my mother saved me from any disastrous entanglements my stupid joke could get me into when she recently, out of the blue, announced she had a surprise for me. Skates were the last thing I was expecting.

When the time is right, I always used to say, when my hopes got dashed by a pair that never fit. Or experienced the fleeting excitement of seeing them in a sports store, only to find they were for kids. Never adults. Always kids. Maybe that’s what started this whole obsession to begin with. Something about a missed experience in my childhood.

I loved ice skating. Rollerblades, however, felt terrifying. I’d rather fall on ice than concrete. Quad skates looked forgiving — stable enough for a cautious adrenaline junkie, if such a contradiction can balance on four wheels.

Then came my high school hippie phase. Somewhere between history lessons and flower power, I developed an image of myself happily skating through life in 1960s fashion. Maybe keeping the dream alive kept me connected to that younger version of myself. The caveat was, that as long as I never found the skates, I never had to risk falling flat on my face.

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Then the skates arrived. Not battered vintage skates like I’d always imagined, but shiny, brand-new professional quad skates. Bless my mother. While I’d quietly filed the dream away, revisiting it only occasionally like an old favourite movie, she’d never forgotten.

She got these fancy skates shipped them all the way here to this sleepy hollow. They even come with a warranty. And light up wheels that the adult in me should find embarrassing. But honestly? If you’re finally living out a childhood dream, who cares? I immediately started lacing them up.

“Not until you’ve bought a helmet and knee pads,” my mother said, sounding more like a mother than she has since I was about ten. She watched me wobble across the lounge clutching furniture, looking less like the graceful skater of my imagination and more like a newborn giraffe learning to walk.

“Stop! Not in the house! You’re going to kill yourself … Oh, what have I done?”

The irony wasn’t lost on either of us. She thought she’d bought me the gift of death.

“I’m not going to fall,” I assured her. Mostly I was trying to convince myself.

It helps to bend the knees. Thanks, ChatGPT. At least, in my wise old age, I’ve learnt to consult the “manual” first. I do agree with my mother about the protective gear, though. My knees have spent most of my life held together by little more than divine intervention.

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In another strange coincidence, it turns out I’m not alone in this ridiculous dream. During a recent work trip I overheard a colleague telling someone she’d always wanted a pair of retro roller skates.

“With the brake in the front,” I excitedly interrupted. Better still, we’d both independently discovered that adult quad skates are now being sold in actual sports shops. In Pietermaritzburg. Murphy’s Law, isn’t it? After decades of searching, the moment I finally get my hands on a pair, they become commonplace. Or perhaps I’ve simply lived long enough to witness fashion completing its inevitable circle, handing my generation another chance at the childhood experience we missed.

Am I too old for this? I’ll admit it. Looking at those star-patterned skates with their ridiculous light-up wheels is equal parts thrilling and terrifying. Unlike the dream, the reality comes with bumps, bruises and the very real possibility of throwing my back out before I even master a corner. It’s kind of nerve racking. And maybe that’s the point.

Am I up for all the bumps and bruises? Between you and me, no. I’m scared as hell. As it is, my back hurts when I wear high heels or sit for too long and I pull muscles merely by sneezing.

But I owe it to that 13-or-some- thing-year-old girl, somewhere inside of me, who still believes in me and has been waiting for this moment since she dreamt it up.

She tells me, you’re never too old. And I think she’s right. I think we should all believe it.