Living my Dreams

Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
(Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall)

Four months ago, I attended a presentation by Brenda Jasmin of Mothers on Fire. You can read what I wrote about it here.

This morning Brenda returned to my mother's group for another presentation. I had meant to write about this morning's presentation, but reading that last post has sidetracked me. I will write about this morning on another post soon.

Reading that last post I wrote about Mothers on Fire, I don't know whether to laugh or cry...or both.

I was so hopeful...even when I chipped my tooth while writing it....but I had our new puppy for 3 days at that point...I didn't know what was to come.

If I was to look back over the last four months, I have had so many wonderful experiences (I should go back and look at my calendar and photos to be reminded)...but they have been mixed with some lows. The lows may not be many...and in the big picture of life are minor lows...but I have been letting them get to me.

I have recently started to come out of it...and am kind of annoyed at myself for not having handled the situation better...but live and learn.

Last week, I was going through my notebook where I had listed some dreams I wrote in early January of 1996. My dreams were:

1. Two children by the end of year 2000 (born end of 1996 and 1999)
2. Own a house with yard (bought it in 1997)
3. Own grand piano (with my house...not going to happen and perhaps not that important)
   
4. Have comfortable sitting area by bay window (I used to have this...but it became our son's bedroom...hmmm)
5. Get big dog and dog house
6. Write a song I like (Jan 29, 1996 - the first dream I realized)

etc. (there were 56 dreams)

Wait a minute...let's go back to #5. Did I really write get a big dog? Am I in the process of realizing a dream and didn't realize it?

(The dog house was for my mother's sake so I had somewhere to put the dog when she visited...turns out that a dog house is not realistic because there's no way I would want my dog outside with the racoons (I grew up in a small town with dogs living a couple of doors down in a huge fenced in area and huge dog house)...so a dog sitter will have to do in the city).

So that was last week. I think this was a turning point for me. No I'm not past the hardships of adjusting to a puppy in my life. I will still have down times...but I am hoping to accept them better in the future.

I wrote in that Mothers on Fire blog post about the dream collage. At some point, I had read or been told to just collect images of things that spoke to you (made you happy, were beautiful to you, made you go aaahhh, etc.). I'm happy to have found those magazine clippings I mentioned I couldn't find. A few weeks ago, I looked for photos of dogs...was this part of my dreams (I hadn't looked at my dreams notebook at this point)? I didn't find any.

I just went through the folder again to see what kind of clippings I did have. There are probably over 100 images including:

• couples
• 
• tidy houses ;-) and beautiful closets
• beautiful scenery (of all seasons)
• travel scenes
  
• a woman reading in bed (book club anyone?)
  
• baking with a daughter
• a mother taking a photo of her son's first steps with a D-SLR (it's an ad for the Nikon D40...with the tagline Your First Digital SLR for all of life's "Firsts") I would end up receiving a D80 for my birthday a year later (although I think taking the photo of family moments was more my attraction to this photo)
  
• girlfriends toasting with red wine
• on the back of an autumn scene is a Free The Children ad (didn't know about Free the Children when I cut it out)
• "Golf is Taboo" ad (with fall colours...it's one of Mike Weir's official courses, so it's been a dream of mine to play there..maybe with my son?)
• downtown scenes
• James Blunt in concert (huh...his song just began in my random playlist (of 400 songs) after I wrote that)
• sleeping scenes
• 
  

This is SO me (ok, perhaps not with a smile like that early in the morning...but I'll try)...but I love that extra 10 minutes...it may be hard to tell with the smaller copy of this ad, but the photo beside her is of a dog! Didn't notice until I went to scan it.

I also found this one:



I don't know why I didn't notice it the last time I looked. So having a dog was definitely in my dreams.

I was thinking in the past week about when I had babies. Every time things weren't going the way I hoped and I didn't know how to resolve the issue, I would grab a parenting book and research on how to parent better. I would talk to my friends, my mother, my older sister (who had 4 kids) or anyone who seemed to have wisdom.

So I realized that this is what I need now. Like parenting when I had no experience with babies (never babysat or taken care of kids), I have no experience with dogs. I liked them, but more from afar.

I had bought a number of books on taking care of a puppy (and got as much as I could find from the library), but that was generic initial puppy training. I read them before getting the dog (and in the first month or so), but now my needs are different. More specific help on the type of dog I have would be helpful.

Yesterday I bought a book entitled High-Energy Dogs: A Practical Guide to Living With Energetic and Driven Canines. There are lots of references to Australian Shepherds!!

So when I have difficult days I will remind myself that I am living one of my dreams. Who says that dreams are supposed to be easy?

And speaking of my dreams...I also have to include this clipping I found in my folder. On and off I have been talking about going to the Olympic Games since Vancouver were awarded the Games (well actually since I was a kid, but was considering actually doing it since Vancouver got the Games). I will expand on this story in another post...but read the first "thing to do while you're alive" in this ad:



I'm thankful to have seen Brenda again this morning which prompted me re-reading my post and make me realize that perhaps I haven't been a Mother on Fire since I last saw her, but that doesn't mean that I can't be in the future.