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?