Dare To Dream

"You allow yourself to think bigger than life, because even the most fantastic dreams have something to tell us about who we are---and who we may yet become."

So here we go. An adventure of me. I am at the beginning and anything is possible. I have the potential to become extraordinary, and it's all up to me.

How long has it been since I dreamed of what I wanted to be, about where I want to go, or what I want to experience in this life?

 Shamefully, the only recent dream I have been focusing on is a dream that has gone unrealized. For as long as I can remember I have had the dream of being a wife and mother.

There were very few things I pretended to be as a child. I used to play with the air conditioning machine in our backyard, pretending the slim metal slats were card catalog files, but I didn't ever dream of becoming a librarian. I had toy medical kits and said I wanted to be a cardiac surgeon, but I didn't ever act out performing a heart bypass. I did, however, frequently imitate all the aspects of being a mother that I had been exposed to. From being pregnant and giving birth, to caring for my many Cabbage Patch dolls, I pretended to do all the things I thought a mother would do. As I grew, nothing else really compared to the desire I had to be a mother. 

I floundered in college, knowing I needed and wanted to get a degree, but knowing that no degree would fulfill the deepest desire of my heart. It is hard to dream and plan when your ultimate dream depends on so many factors that you have no real control over. And so I stopped dreaming. I plugged along, getting degrees that I enjoyed and that brought some sort of joy to my life, and put THE dream on the back burner.

But why shouldn't I consider other dreams? There are plenty of things I want to try and experience, not just being a wife and mother, so why not move the focus to some of these other dreams?

The first badge I am attempting is a pretty basic self discovery one, "Dare to Dream: The First Step." Requirements involve writing down dreams, even ones that seem unachievable, pushing the limits of what I think I can do, envisioning the realization of these dreams, and other introspective activities. It should take 2-3 weeks. First step, scheduling 3 one hour dream sessions. SO, I should post 3 times in the next two weeks about these sessions. Expect ramblings on crazy dreams I'm exploring, regrets of dreams left behind, and other possibly embarrassing ideas.