Friday, October 03, 2008

Dreamless in San Diego

I am taking a leadership training class at work. Our homework from the last class was to write a list of our dreams, big or small, work or personal. It has been a busy, frustrating two weeks since the last class, and I am only now thinking about this assignment. I brought it home with me, thinking I'd work on it tonight with a beer in hand (beers help you dream... really! Hubby and I hatched our plans for the big trip over beers at our local pub).

Hubby is enjoying a well earned night out with some friends tonight, so it was just Pumpkin and me through the dinner, walk, nurse, bath, snack, brush teeth, books, bedtime routine. Throughout, I was sort of thinking about the assignment, at least when Pumpkin wasn't busy telling me about the cat we'd just seen ("eee-ow! eee-ow!") or asking for "Daaad-ee". Nothing was coming to me, but I figured that once I sat down with my beer, I'd have no problems. I've always had dreams. Before the big trip, there was the wedding in the south pacific (mentioned in this post and this one). I had dreams of owning a house and not having to live with someone else's bad decorating decisions (the crushing realization that you can buy a house and still live with someone else's bad decorating decisions, as evidenced by my bright blue bathrooms, is the topic of another post). I always had a career plan, with short term and long term goals. At one point, I had dreams of earning my fighting shorts in Muay Thai (also the topic of another post).

Now... I'm almost done with my beer, and still I have nothing. Sure, I'd like to travel more, but whereas in the past, I could always point to specific places I wanted to go (Easter Island, Angkor Wat...), now I have a much fuzzier idea that it would be nice to see some new places. I used to have big ideas about things I'd like to do in my work field. Now, I have no such ideas, and I honestly don't know what the next step in my career should be. I used to have specific goals I aimed for in whatever fitness activity I was doing. Now, my goal is just to make it to a yoga class once a week. Oh, and I'm at least 20 years younger than everyone else in my yoga class. The first day I showed up for class, the other students thought I was a substitute instructor.

I can't decide if this lack of dreams is a sad state of affairs, or just a normal phase of a relatively new mother.

I think I'll go finish my beer while watching a Daily Show or something, and just try to forget all about this assignment.

2 comments:

  1. I think this is just a normal phase of being the mother of a tiny person. At least that's what I'm hoping since I'm in pretty much the same boat as you are. I also had the rather nasty experience a few months ago of having an actual shot at the job which had been my dream job since I was 8, and the crashing realization that the amount of travel and instability would likely destroy my marriage and take me away from the little one for months at a time. An easy decision to make in the end...but really heartbreaking.
    I really hope this is a phase, I'd like to get my drive and motivation back one of these days!

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  2. I also think it's a normal phase. I used to be so motivated at work and home, and now I just want to get by.

    Besides, don't you need to be getting sleep to be able to dream?

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