Who told you to stop~ Marty Kantrowitz

I, sometimes, imagine my life with no husband or child...Or maybe I imagine my life before them and what it could have been. Not in a "what the hell am I doing with my life" sort of way but, in the nostalgic, "what could have been" way.

We all have dreams. And if we are alive, we keep living and seeing that some of our dreams and wants are not happening or did not happen as we thought, as we hoped or as we dreamed. And I find it so easy to romanticize that which I have not lived as being the perfect version of me and my life. I imagine the things that I wanted so badly when I was 10 years old, being what I am today.

And then I am struck with the wonder of what IS. I mean what really is! It's so easy to think that which could have been and is not, is the perfect scenario. It's an easy cop out: I know this cause I've walked down this road many times before. It's so easy to feel constricted by the demands of our today and hear a, "stop dreaming, you will not and can not be what you longed to be". It's easy to hear that someone else is stopping us and telling us, "No!": our husbands, our children, our jobs, our...LIVES.

What takes energy and gives such purpose is seeing...I mean really seeing what is before me and the beauty and magic it holds. A husband who loves me and in no way asks me to be anything other than who I am. A daughter that thinks I hold the moon and the sun in my hands and wants to be me when she grows up. A life that offers me unconditional love and support. I couldn't have dreamnt this! It's better than the nostalgic, "what could have been". It is alive with what IS and teaming with possibility.

I watched a movie called, "A walk on the moon". In this movie the wife cheats on her husband with this incredibly sexy free spirit of a man who sells blouses...(I know, but he looked AMAZING). She cheats because she felt robbed of the life she dreamnt of as a young girl. She felt that she couldn't dream and do anymore, that she had stopped existing and had disappeared. When her husband finds out, he, of course, is pissed. She tells him how it wasn't him, but her. she had dreams and she needed to try to touch them. He asks her one question, "who told you to stop (being you)?". He tells her he had dreams too. Opportunities dashed and what could have been, not being.

You see, he never did tell her to stop being who she was. She heard it from life rolling as it does and her not taking the steps to reinvigorate her life be who she hoped to be. It's so easy to look around and blame our not living life out loud and in compliance with the BIG DREAM of our childhood, on others. On life. But maybe, the life that we have is different and better than the dream and our living with each other changes the terrain of the dream, giving it more depth and richness. Maybe the living is better than the dream and if the living isn't better, then WE make the changes! Because, who told you to stop? Not me~