Today I Dream

In my experience, there are three essential steps to initiate change:  1) Dream that it can happen (allow your mind to conceive that it could happen).  2) Formulate the plan (confront the reality of how it can happen).  3)  Execute the plan (take action to make it happen).  Although I could write at length about all three steps, today I feel like dreaming.

I love dreams because they are not limited by my current circumstances or the boundaries of reality. In my freest moments, I allow my mind to consider possibilities that practicality ultimately overrides. What if I had another five children and homeschooled them all to Harvard? What if I started a school for black boys that combined high academic standards with christian character education to produce a generation of Godly leaders? What if we could find a way to generate enough income so that our family could spend several years abroad and my kids could truly become fluent in multiple languages? What if I became a bestselling author and got to walk the red carpet on Oscar night when my novel became a celebrated film?  What if I actually ran and finished a full marathon? The beauty of a dream is that the only scrutiny it must withstand is the limits of my own imagination. It belongs to me.  I can choose to share it with others or cherish it privately in moments when my sense of purpose is uncertain. Today I sat down and wrote out an updated playlist of the current dreams that constantly loop in my brain when I need an escape.   Here they are in no particular order:

• Start a butterfly garden
• Start a real garden (with food....)
• Learn to play guitar
• Play piano again and develop my skills to the level that they were in high school
• Write a song and record it with my own voice 
• Become debt free
• Write a novel and publish it
• Write a screenplay based on said novel and see it produced into a feature film
• Memorize several biblical passages in the old and new testament and teach them to my kids
• Earn enough as a freelance writer to work from home and build my schedule around our family
• Run a marathon (starting with 10k, and 1/2 marathon )
• Live abroad long enough for my sons to become fluent in all six official languages of the U.N.
• Become fluent in Mandarin and Spanish
• Go on a vacation with my husband alone
• Become debt free
• Take our children on a whale watch to see orca whales in their natural habitat
• Take our children on an African safari
• Visit all 50 states and each continent at least once by the time my oldest child graduates from high school
• Have at least one daughter:)  (I would love twin girls)
• Become debt free (This one repeats itself because realizing this dream is the gateway to realizing so many of the others)
• Introduce my sons to Barack Obama
• Introduce my mom to Barack Obama
• Introduce myself to Michelle Obama 
• Meet: Maya Angelou, Bill Cosby, Phylicia Rashad, Condoleezza Rice, Robin Roberts, India Arie, Marva Collins, Ce Ce Winans, and James Dobson.
• Send homemade cookies and a note of appreciation to all of the people I care about at least once
• Go to an Olympic Games
• Start a children's clothing line for boys
• Start a school for black boys like Urban Prep in Chicago
• Find a place within the pro-life movement
• Become an amateur photographer
• Become an expert in something.

   That's the short list.  My goal is to check in with this list after the new year and give an update on any progress.

Writer's Block.

Less than two weeks in to the blogging life and I've already broken the cardinal rule: Write. Write. Write. In the time since my last entry, I've had at least one seemingly brilliant idea each day, but by the time I started typing and editing the post in Word, my mind had moved on to something else. So tonight I write. Not to produce anything witty or memorable, but to conquer the overwhelming feelings of self-doubt that creep in whenever I click on the link to open a new post. I haven't even told anyone else that this blog exists. It's almost like a secret diary that I have intentionally left on the kitchen table in the hopes that someone discovers it without my introduction. Dear Reader (if you exist), thanks for stopping in.

And so it begins...

Writing a blog is like dancing naked across a dark stage knowing that at any minute, the lights might come up and a crowd full of spectators could be focused on your every move.

Today I have the naïve joy and false confidence of putting my thoughts out there knowing that not another soul has any clue of their existence.

I have the absolute freedom to tell the world what I really think about serious controversial issues, or to focus on lighthearted observations about topics that will be irrelevant next week.

I can write as though I assume that everyone in the world agrees with me, because until a comment says otherwise, there is no evidence to the contrary.

I know that this post may one day be read by thousands of people, or eventually die a simple death by deletion, read only by my mother, and my husband (if nothing more interesting catches his eye on ebay or itunes first).

So with that in mind Dear Reader (if you exist), this blog is a private quest with public oversight- a means to an end, if you will. It is my declaration that I love to write, and I have the discipline to do it; and ultimately it is the precursor to my lifelong dream of writing a novel without fear of how the world will receive it.

I’m ready to get undressed (metaphorically speaking…) see you at the theater.