These Dreams

In the hoarded pile of to do things in my mind one of my projects I periodically have been working on this year is re-reading old hardbound journals that I kept before the days of blogging.  Right now I am up to the spring of 2002.  I was almost 27 years old.  I had been on the Pagan path (Wicca at that time) for 4 years and I was newly married to my first husband.  During this era I had written a little list of goals/hopes/ambitions that I had for my life at the time.

'My real dreams don't consist of much.  I want to spend my life in a happy marriage.  I want to be financially secure.  I want to travel to exciting places.  I want to be a "bad ass Wicca" [quoting a Buffy the Vampire Slayer character, it was my silly way of saying  I wanted to be more knowledgeable within my spirituality].'

I went on to say that I didn't want children anytime soon at that time so I could do these things.  But then... BAM!  The very next year  the "baby" bug hit so badly I couldn't think straight.  My 30th birthday was looming a couple of years into the future and suddenly "my eggs were screaming to get out".  And so I put an extreme amount of pressure on my then husband to start baby-making even though he clearly wasn't ready.  It was one of the things on my part that destroyed the marriage (yes, I can own up to the fact that I had a part in it too even though his problems with depression and addiction were the main root of it all). And so...




Well... so here it is almost 10 years later.  1 marriage later, 1 bankruptcy later, 3 kids later, 0 travel adventures later and 10 years of very mixed eclectic spirituality later.  And I was surprised to find that basically my dreams haven't really changed at all, which is not a bad thing.  My ideas about marriage have matured quite a bit and while wisdom is good I miss that starry-eyed-Persephone outlook I used to have.  "Happy marriage" used to be defined as someone who had nearly all the same interests as me, was in some form "artistic" and wouldn't even notice if I left town to go party with the girls.  (Exactly the kind of guy who ends up not knowing when to shower, when to get off of the Internet RPG after a 12 hour session or that one doesn't wear dirty wrinkly laundry to job interviews).  Now for me functional happy marriage is defined as someone who is gainfully employed and helps with the housework and kids.  Financial security... well after years of being financially comfortable I haven't been there since 2005 so I don't even feel qualified to define what that might be anymore.  Traveling... that will have to wait until either the kids are all in school or I get that long sought after position with the airline I've applied for before and will be applying for again in a couple of months.  The spiritual part did mature too in a much better way I think.  But either way these are still things I strive for.

Odd... the dreams haven't changed, and some have even been achieved.  I just have to find a different path to find my way to the ones that still need work.