In your dreams baby!!!

When I was little I used to have this recurring dream that I came home from school and the clothes line was filled with brand new clothes for me. Being the youngest of 4 kids I didn't always get new stuff I used to think that if I only had a thousand dollars I could get all the clothes I wanted. Remembering this dream is pretty funny to me considering that I really hate shopping. However, I look back at those years and the innocence I used to have and now at my age I wonder what my dreams are and what I want to do with the rest of my life. From my previous post where I discussed my anxiety, I can say things are getting better for me; however I still have some anxiety about my future. You spend a great portion of your life wondering what you will do when you grow up and then you are grown up and wonder what happened to all those years past. For some of us it comes easy but for others it is not so simple, we don’t all get to live the traditional life path, for some of us our path is a bit rockier with hills and dips, while others have a perfectly paved road, lighted with beautiful street lamps to guide them. A year ago at this time I really thought I had it all figured out, I had an awesome boyfriend, I really thought we'd be getting married until I brought it up and found out he felt differently. I had a great career, I was moving up, I was a star at work, winning awards and taking on new challenges and really pushing myself and in charge of my destiny, until my new boss decided to take charge of my destiny for me which threw me into these anxiety attacks and so my career path was halted quite abruptly. I had a great son, who is so smart and independent and so different in his own way, until I found out he was slowly ruining his little life and had to quickly change gears in the way I deal with him, which was really hard. All in all I really thought I was set, romantically, financially, career wise and as a parent when all that got thrown to the wind in such a short period. The anxiety is really making me look at the rest of my life in a whole new light.

I made some very drastic changes to my life. I made the decision to quit my job after 10 years, I had to do it for my health. I made the decision to leave my boyfriend, knowing after all we weren't right for each other. I left Florida for Colorado, just when I started to learn to love Florida for the state that it is. Next you would think I would add that I left my son, but on the contrary, he and I left on an adventure together. When I started making all these changes I really thought my friends would tell me I was crazy, my friends being the aforementioned rhubarb pie, blueberry pie, lemon meringue and apple pie, but being the friends that they are they surprised me with an immense amount of support and love that I did not expect and it was so wonderful yet again to realize how important these girls are in my life. Some people said I was so brave and they wished they had the guts to do what I was doing, meanwhile I was terrified and yet excited of what lay ahead.

On New Year’s Eve I told the new love in my life "Happy new year, here is to a brand new fresh year just for the two of us". But what does that mean? What am I to do now? I have this new career, new boyfriend, new state to discover and learn to love in the same way I learned to love Florida with its excessive humidity; I have to learn to love Colorado with its excessive dryness! I have a brand new life ahead of me and I am excited to see what these dreams bring me! I now know it will take more then a clothes line full of brand new clothes to bring me immense happiness, I also know that I am strong and adventurous and I have a whole new canvas and appropriately enough a new camera to experience and capture it all. I am not looking for a perfectly paved road, I am not suited for that, but I am looking for maybe a pretty scenery on my rocky path. Maybe it can be lined with pretty flowers for the next part of my life.

While this post is not as funny or about food as my previous posts it is completely from the heart and this is me learning to open up and expose the rawness of feelings and emotions we all go through.

Here's to a new year and I am really going to try and resume my monthly posts!