When I first got divorced after a long marriage to my children's father and was grieving deeply, I experienced moments of tremendous generosity when total strangers lifted me up and carried me forward. Even though I felt like I was walking neck deep through thick mud, I still had to show up for work and for my children and accomplish all the everyday tasks. It was during the commission of one of these tasks as I was standing at the check out counter at my local grocery store silently with tears streaming down my face that the checker finished scanning and bagging my items and then came around the island, hugged me and whispered in my ear “You will be alright because your children need you to be.”
It was during this time I resolved to save myself for myself and for my children. Luckily, my deeply rooted sense of self- preservation kicked into high gear, steered me away from tumbling headfirst into a bottle for a good, long period of numb and brought another revelation that put me on solid footing of the road of healing. I realized one of the most difficult parts of the divorce process (second only to the grief of losing the love I had counted on for a lifetime) was that all my dreams had departed with my husband. All those years, I had enjoyed dreaming dreams that were written for that relationship, located in that house and cast with the members of the family we had created together. There was not a single dream snapshot I had that did not spring from that relationship.
As another positive step towards my future (post-apocalyptic divorce) was setting my mind on new dreaming new dreams. They were my safest method of propulsion through the days, weeks and months when I could not self-propel. As silly and far reaching as they seemed, I forced myself to dream them through lawyer visits, family counseling sessions, mediation, packing up and moving out of our family home when it sold and the divorce settled, finding a new job and moving my children into the tiny rental that was all I could afford as I rebuilt our nest twig by twig. Those dreams gave me joy and hope and all the things my children desperately needed to see me inspired by.
I know the practice of dreaming new dreams works for me and so I have been thinking of new dreams to feather my empty nest in luxurious softness. My rules of dreaming are simple… no budget, no timeline, no limits, no edits. So, here we go!
Dream 1: Spend time everyday writing a little and daydreaming a lot.
Dream 2: Become VP of the company I work for and love showing up to be of service to everyday.
Dream 3: Go on a yoga retreat in some exotic location
Dream 4: Fill the pages of my passport with fantastic stamps of places I have not yet been like Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Bora Bora, China.
Dream 5: Write a card and mail it to someone I love every week because there might be nothing more exciting than receiving a thoughtful card in the mail from a loved one and there are too few of them in the mailbox anymore.
Dream 6: Find a hot playmate and play... a lot.
Dream 7: Practice Italian, go to Italy and find my retirement nest.
Dream 8: Buy a Cadillac, because I deserve one.
Dream 9: Take more baths in a deep bathtub with fabulous, frothy bath bubbles and a good book until the water turns cold.
Dream 10: Eat fabulous food that I don’t have to cook myself.
Well, there’s a start! What are your dreams feather your empty nest?
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