Childhood Dreams

This evening, in an attempt to distract myself from the loneliness I feel when Nephi goes to work, I watched some movies. Not an altogether rare occurrence for me. In fact, that is what I usually do. First I started with the movie Amazing Grace. I have this slight obsession with period pieces, and I have heard many people talk about how good this movie is, so I gave it a viewing. It wasn't that good. Not bad, just...not good.

After Amazing Grace I was feeling up to a romantic comedy. Nephi rented It's Complicated, but he also expressed a desire to watch it, so I decided to go ahead and wait for him. I put in The Holiday instead (a personal favorite). As always, it was good.

After that was over, I only had about an hour and a half before Nephi got home so I went straight to the animated section. The Little Mermaid popped out to me, so I put it in. In the opening sequence when the fish escapes from the boat and swims deep into the ocean and we get to see a bunch of merpeople swimming to Atlantis, I got tingles in my tummy. It made me think about how when I was a kid I would watch this movie over and over and I wanted to be a mermaid SO bad. I even remember having this very involved dream when I was about 7 where I became a mermaid. I remember when I woke up, I was devastated and quickly tried to fall back asleep to continue the dream. Remembering this childhood desire, I realized...I still want to be a mermaid.

A few years ago while Nephi and I were walking on a pier in San Francisco I remember telling him, "I should probably be embarrassed by the fact that I am 21 years old, and my greatest desire is to be a mermaid, but...I'm not." And it is the truth. I feel this desire nearly anytime I go swimming (though the desire is stronger when I go swimming in the ocean). Whenever I am in water, I feel like I belong there. Like I was made to swim...not walk. I LOVE water and it makes me so happy to play around in it. As a kid I would swim every day, all day throughout the summer. As I got older, I stopped spending my summers by the pool (who knows why really). This summer I fully intend on living at the pool. I am also going to Hawaii and look forward to those really happy feelings that being in the ocean gives me.

After thinking about this childhood dream, I started thinking about others. When I was a child, I really wanted to be a professional singer. I love music almost as much as I love water, and I have always loved to sing. Growing up my parents encouraged it highly and complimented me often. All throughout school I participated in choir and musicals. After high school I took a year and a half off from school so I had no opportunities to sing. Then once I got to college, I just didn't put forth any effort to get involved in that stuff. It is something I regret because while I can obviously still sing, I have sorta lost a lot of the skills I used to have. I also realized as an adult that I was not nearly as good at singing as I always thought growing up. Even though I will obviously never be a professional singer (nor do I want to be any longer), I really want to start participating in church choir so that I can redevelop those skills.

Finally, as a kid I really wanted to get married and have a huge family (a fairly realistic dream for one with such an active imagination). I dreamed of having a husband who would love me more than anything else and we would be together forever. My parents were divorced and that was something I promised myself I would never do if I could avoid it. Now that I am grown up, I have accomplished part of this dream. I have a wonderful husband who I have been married to for 5 years! It seems crazy to me that I should be lucky enough to find someone who loves me so early in life. Of course, the other part of my dream is a work in progress. I still want a relatively large family (though I don't want the 12 children I originally wanted), and it is something that I really ache for. When I first got married I only wanted babies. Now I see teenagers with their parents and it makes me want my own. It has really gotten pathetic. Anyway...hopefully within the next couple of years the second part of this dream will be well on its way.

I know this is a kinda random post, but as I started thinking about my childhood dreams, I realized not much has changed. I still want to be a mermaid, though now I have a firmer grasp of how impossible this is. Instead I am going to try and be better about going to the pool and swimming. Not only does it make me so happy, but it is also a good way to exercise so why not take advantage of this? I still really love music and to sing, so why not work on developing my skills and talents in that area? While I may not want 12 children, I still want to be surrounded by the love of my husband and future children. Why not do better at developing and showing that love TO my husband?

Sometimes we think about how silly children are with their imaginations and their out of this world dreams, but are they really? I hope I never forget the dreams I had when I was a kid as they reveal a lot of truths about who I am today. So...what was YOUR childhood dream?

News to Me

So I pretty much read the news all the time. I would say that I check news websites every couple of hours on average. Obviously I am very up on what is going on at any given time. I read about my local community at www.ksl.com, I read about national, worldwide, and entertainment news at www.comcast.net, and I read about movie news at www.rottentomatoes.com.

I am not sure when this compulsion started, but it is definitely something I have a hard time controlling. The idea of being away from the internet, and thus news, for any given amount of time freaks me out a bit. I like knowing what is going on.

I bring this up because as of late I have started noticing how much certain news stories get to me. Sometimes they cause me to have positive feelings and sometimes they have the opposite effect. Either way...some news stories leave me thinking for days to come.

Take this one for example: http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=10247472

The above link is an article about how Utah needs more permanent foster homes for teenagers. After reading this article I started thinking about whether I would ever be willing to open my home to a complete stranger. I thought about how if something happened to me and all of my family, I would want someone to take care of my theoretical children. I have thought about fostering kids a lot, as Utah also likes to advertise the importance of the concept through billboards.

Anyway, I really started thinking about the idea and I got all hot on it. Like...I want to foster a teenager. Obviously I started really thinking about the logistics. Would a teenager be more expensive than a baby? Yes. Would a teenager take more time than a baby? Maybe, maybe not. Would a teenager be more emotionally exhausting? Definitely. Am I even old and mature enough to deal with the issues that present themselves with a teenager? I honestly have no clue. I still haven't really come to any hard and fast conclusions on whether or not having a teenager would be that much bigger of an adjustment than having a baby.

Obviously I don't have room, money, or time for a teenager right now, but I think that once Nephi and I are both out of school it is something I really want to do. I don't know if I'll ever convince Nephi, but I can only imagine the importance of the impact that would have on a person's life. The part of the article that touched me the most was when they talked about the family who still keeps in contact with their foster child even though they are out of the house. I can only hoped to be so blessed to add someone else into my family. I don't know...maybe I'm idealistic.

Another news story that I can't seem to get out of my head is from today: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20100405/US.Mine.Explosion/

I haven't read this article word for word or anything, but the headline pretty much does it for me. Apparently there was an explosion in a mine in West Virginia and 25 people died. I totally understand that more than 25 people die all the time, but something about this really depresses me. As I tried to go to bed tonight I found that I couldn't sleep. I couldn't get the image of a woman crying in her bed knowing her husband will never come home out of my head. I guess I feel strangely responsible that I live a life that requires that we send people under the earth to mine coal. It feels so primitive. In fact, when you think about it...mining is something that my subconscious thinks doesn't exist anymore. Obviously I know better (as my mother works for a gold mining company), but it still feels so far removed from my life.

Reading the news usually makes me want to be a better person...which is a good thing since it could easily have a different effect. I could just as easily feel like the world is a sad and hopeless place after reading the news, but I really never feel that way. I just feel like I want to do what I can to be better. I want to foster a teenager and change a life. I want to be grateful that I have grown up in a manner that provides me with a surety that my husband will not be forever lost underground. How blessed I am and I am glad that the news puts that into perspective for me.

Speaking of being blessed, I saw a trailer for Oceans today. I should preface this sub-topic by saying that I really don't enjoy nature shows. I was just telling my husband the other day how horrible I feel watching them. I realized this after having to watch 20 minutes of Planet Earth or Blue Planet or something during flex-time at school. The "episode" had wolves and good old Sigourney Weaver explained that the wolves were starving after a long winter. Instantly I was like, "Awww...poor wolves!" Of course, soon the wolves come across a herd of caribou. "Oh no!" I exclaim. As I watch a poor baby caribou get separated from its mother and then tackled by the wolf, my heart seriously aches and I feel sick. I don't feel any animosity towards the wolf...just sadness for the caribou. Anyway, I feel like it is a lose-lose situation. Either the caribou gets caught and dies, or the wolf starves. I really don't do well with animal deaths in any manner. Anyway...it is because of this constant stress and heartache that I can't watch nature shows. However, as I watched the trailer for Oceans (completely death free), I realized how truly amazing this world is. It has so much variety, color, and beauty. How can anyone live on it and not believe in Heavenly Father (not a diss to those people...I just don't get it). This world is stunning and we are so very lucky to live here.

P.S. If you haven't noticed...the first one or two songs in my playlist match the most recent blog post. This time it is the first two. :)

P.P.S. Please ignore any misuses of effect/affect. I have NEVER figured that one out.