Goodbye Dreams. Hello Reality.

Photo Credit The Female Quixote Studio | www.TFQstudio.com

When I was a teenager I was one hundred percent sure that I wanted children one day when I got married.  At that time I was hardly ever around children and I didn't understand the depths of taking care of kids until I became an adult and my brothers got married and started their own families. 

 

I slightly experienced changing diapers, testing milk bottles, coddling babies to sleep and watched as they cried and screamed at the top of their lungs. These interactions caused me to often teeter back and forward as to whether I wanted children.

By the time I met my husband I was ninety to ninety-five percent sure that I did not want children.  I would tell people that I wanted to get married and they mistook that as me meaning that I wanted children too.  I would reply that they could keep the kid, I just want a husband.  This may have been a harsh statement, but a truthful one.

 

In a couple months I will have a baby girl.  The moment I found out I was pregnant was the day I knew I could no longer be a dreamer.  I knew that the life I had always pictured having in my mind, the better life I eventually had planned for myself was over.  I aspired to have the kind of life that without a moments notice I packed a bag and flew off to wherever.  You can't do that with a child.  I wanted a life where if one day I got so fed up with my job I could quit, but you can't do that when you have a child either.  The obvious reason being that a steady guaranteed income and medical benefits are needed.  Yes my husband works, but two incomes are better than one.  Yep, I felt like life was pretty much over because I could no longer live for myself, but would have to be the provider for a child.  

Those were my initial thoughts when I first found out I would be having a child, but now that my due date is nearing I see things differently.  I realize that my dreams don't have to die just become modified a bit.  I can't up and quit my job, but I can spend more time looking for another one or better yet finding a way to transition into full-time entrepreneurship.  Even with traveling, of course, I will have to wait until she is a little older, but I can still have the spontaneous getaways even if it is just a short family weekend trip.

It is possible to have it all, but I will just have space things out and realize that it will not occur all at once.  The other night I was making a list of all the things my husband and I will need to get for the baby and for the first time in months I felt excited about the bundle of joy growing inside of me.  I may need to sculpt my dreams a little more methodically nowadays, but it doesn't mean that I have to stop dreaming entirely.

Thanks for reading!

(John 3:16)