Dream Dream Dream

Have you ever had one of those moments with your child when they do or say something and you just know they learned it from you.  Whether you directly or indirectly taught them or they were born with the knowledge deep in their DNA doesn’t matter.

This moment was a case of monkey see, monkey do:

This is my eldest child on her Dora the Explorer lap top at our kitchen table, if you look to the top of the photo, you’ll see my lap top in a place it spends as much time as I can find during our busy week to use it.

I took the photo without realising what I was looking at until afterwards.  She’s just copying me right?  I suppose so, but it felt like a lot more than that to me.

I’m a writer, I’m still mostly blogging, but as soon as the kids are old enough to give me more time, my plan is to go for it.  I want to blog more, I want to write a book, I want to write articles, I want to reach people with my words and leave the world a tiny bit better than I found it.

It’s a dream I’m realising a little later in life and not my first, as a teenager I wanted to be an actor.  I went to drama school and on graduating did really well for a while, then the work started to dry up and the rejection at auditions took its toll.

I reached 23 and felt washed up so I ran away to America for a while, came back refreshed and then realised I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I got a job in an office, then another and another.  I went back to college, met my other half, started a family and life moved along pretty quickly.

One thing I held onto through the years was my love of words.  Whether it was reading them or writing them, from a young age they have always given me joy.  So a new dream was born of an old habit and I suddenly felt successful in a way I hadn’t before.

It took me a long while to realise that was what mattered.  I didn’t have to prove myself when it came to my dreams.  They’re mine and even though it sounds clichéd, it’s not whether or not I succeed but that I tried in the first place that matters most.

So now, onto teaching that to my children?  It’s going to take a lot of repetition methinks.

My daughter wants to be so many things - doctor, mum, singer, shop assistant, hair dresser, teacher, astronaut, spy, cartoon (that’s not a typo) – the list goes on.  She has no limits, she believes she can do it all and at the same time. 

I love that about her and look forward to her little brothers list when he tires of the spatula he’s currently using as a weapon of mass destruction.

I want to keep their hope and positivity alive so they don’t lose confidence or feel their dreams are out of their reach.

On the bright side, they don’t tire easily.