Maybe, sometimes, we dream the dreams that feel more comfortable than what we truly want. But, how do we separate which is which? How do we change perspective? 

For a long time, I have yearned with all my heart for a family of my own. To fall in love, to have children. I craved the experience of falling in love, and hoped for the children that would follow. I feel that I have a nurturing side, I just haven’t had many chances to express it. One person I was able to express my nurturing side with is my great-grandmother. She was 91 when she died at the beginning of this year, as I have covered in previous blog posts.  She was a lifelong caregiver, and took great joy in raising several generations of our family. As she aged, we got to pay it forward and care for her. Aging is hard on the mind and body, and she had several health problems. She sometimes became very frustrated with her health and her body. However, my mom, siblings and I were always there to support her and loved sharing our lives with her. 

I miss doing things to make her happy, like finding television shows to watch that she would enjoy too, giving her presents like word search puzzle books and magazines about soap operas and celebrities. I miss holding her hand and helping her walk, and fetching her things. I miss just sitting beside her. Even if we weren’t speaking, I felt our connection, the same connection that we shared when I was the child who needed nurturing. I got to give her back the love and care she gave me.

For a long time, I idealized the dream of being a wife and mother, but lately I see that this dream is getting in the way of me having other goals. Since my last romantic relationship failed, my wheels have been spinning. I haven’t been passionate about my lifelong goal of being a writer. I prayed, this evening, “Lord, help me live without that which I desire.”

In saying this prayer, I meant living without the husband and kids I dream of. However, I received counsel from a trusted relative that I have given up on my lifelong dream of being a writer in favor of my preoccupation with romance, marriage, and kids. Maybe I have hung onto this dream because it is an escape, whereas writing is a difficult endeavor that would take commitment, effort, originality, deep thought, and solitude. To be the artist I dreamed and hoped and went to college to be when I was younger, I would need to face myself and take what I find there in my hands and shape into art that has a voice and point to make. 

Until I know who I am, what I want, and what I have to say, being a writer feels like it is asking things of me that I don’t know where to find or how to give.

I miss being able to make my grandmother happy. The love I gave her is the way I hope to one day make my children smile. Until then, there are many parts of me that need my love, and the love of Jesus Christ to become whole and healthy enough to create a beautiful, vibrant life.

I told my sister that I wrote my heart out on this blog post! To which she responded, “If you wrote your heart out, then it is all yours’.”