Dreams Evolved

There was a marathon on TV this weekend of the show “Say Yes To The Dress”. The show featured brides shopping in one of New York’s priciest bridal salons in hopes of finding their perfect wedding dress. I watched a few episode before overdosing on words like mermaid, ballgown, bling, and “it’s just not me.” But, during the shows I did see, every single bride, during their short recorded monologue, said “This is how I always dreamed my life would be.”

Admittedly, most of the brides were quite young and their lives up to the point of being recorded for the show probably were living their dreams. Many, maybe even most, young girls have similar dreams – meeting a soul mate, getting married in a beautiful ceremony in front of family and friends, and then continuing the dream with a perfect marriage, a perfect house, 2.5 perfect children, etc. etc.

And I was one of those young girls. I had my life mapped out by the time I was 16 years old. My marriage would be wonderful and special. I would stay married like my parents for scores of years. My children would be smart, well-liked, and well-behaved. I would have the house with the white picket fence and a dog and a cat in the yard.

SMACK!!!!!

That was life giving me a wake up call soon after getting married. My ex-husband turned out to not be the man of my dreams. He was an abusive alcoholic. We didn’t have the house with the flowers in the yard. We had a bankruptcy filing. I didn’t have friends because I felt I needed to hide the horrors of my life. And, it would take 14 years before I realized my dream of having a child.

That, I now know, was my life-in-training. My dream has been realized although it is pretty different than the dream of my 16 year old self.

I now do have the house of my dreams, a house that is very-well suited to the children I have. I have five children, the gaggle that I did always dream of. I have a good job, though it does wear me out most weeks. My children and I have friends and neighbors we adore, and even though disability is a constant in our lives, we are happy and content.

So, my life has evolved into a different dream, but one that has made me happier than I ever thought possible. How about you? Did you have dreams that came true, dreams that evolved, or dreams still waiting to burst forth?