Dreaming
Do you still dream?
Quick Intro:
This is another ‘Drop In’ post from my wife Katherine! Please enjoy.
“The unknown is where all outcomes are possible, enter it with grace”
The above quote was on a teabag, but it resonates with me right now.
When I was younger, life was filled with dreams, so many dreams. Even playing contained dreams. I loved playing with dolls. Sometimes I was a mother, sometimes a teacher, sometimes I traveled overseas and worked in other countries (maybe a little weird for an eight year old I admit).
As I was playing I was dreaming about the future without realizing it. Some of those dreams carried through. My dream to go abroad led me to join the Peace Corps and I have three wild and wonderful kiddos.
Somewhere along the way though my dreams shrunk. By my mid-20s I still had audacious dreams but I pushed them down. I tried to dream more realistic dreams, as in a promotion or a dream vacation. While nothing is wrong with those dreams sometimes we use those to try and fix some other yearning in our life. Then I hit my 30’s and life seemed too busy to dream. Too many responsibilities and too little time. I was in a cycle of daycare, work, kids, sleep and then repeat. I treasure those days when our kids were little and all encompassing but as I near my 40s
I want to start dreaming about more. It’s time to tap back into those bold dreams that involve new life quests. I can feel it bubbling up inside of me, the desire to follow the dreams i’ve so long buried. I want to dream with my husband and kids and I want us to push ourselves to experience life more fully.
Do you remember when you stopped dreaming with reverence or do you still dream wild and free?
As adults it can take courage to dream. Even now I hold my dreams tight because they seem too wild to share in writing. I wonder, what is the antithesis of dreaming? It seems like fear to me. Fear of failure, fear of the impossible, fear of everything going terribly wrong and becoming completely and utterly destitute (or is that just me?), maybe fear of sharing our deepest desires for life?
I asked two of my children what their dreams were. My youngest dreams to walk in the steps of Naruto, a ninja that goes on quests. My daughter dreams to be a famous singer, have lots of pets, and meet Ariana Grande. Both of them shared those dreams freely with no fear that these dreams may not come true or be too ambitious. They stated them very matter of factly.
I want to take a step back so I can dream like my kids and like when I was a kid. Because how can we move further if we don’t allow our dreams to at least start to germinate. This quote came on a teabag, but it resonates with me right now.
It is vital to dream. Every great achievement of mankind was once a dream. Somewhere in the world there’s a kid dreaming that she will cure cancer. She will be the one to do it, and she (like so many other humans before her) will change the world for the better.