Never Stop Dreaming...

Around the beginning of February, I found myself sitting in a quaint little cafe, eating crepes with my girl friends.....feeling dead. In the midst of their lively conversation and friendly banter, I had nothing to say. As the evening drew out, some shared their dreams of going to culinary school in Europe, while others spoke of traveling the world, while yet others dreamed of raising a family, even if it meant adopting children. I sat quietly, listening, but never speaking, because inside there was a raging torment of emotions and questions, "What do I want to do? Where am I going? What happened to all of my dreams?" I didn't know the answer to any of these questions anymore......... I felt empty and purposeless. I lacked direction. I wondered if this was my quarter-life crisis.

As I crawled into bed that evening, emptiness curled up beside me. I wanted to have dreams to dream, and to have definite direction in my life, but there was nothing.....somehow, I had lost it along the way. After several agonizing moments of wrestling with my emptiness, I prayed a melancholy prayer and drifted off to sleep. Many gloomy days later, still searching for direction and purpose, I found a list of "dreams - things to do before I die" that I had jotted down at the beginning of my senior year in college. The farther I read down the list, the wider my smile stretched. Some were silly goals and dreams that made me giggle, others were very real dreams that I still hope to accomplish. I realized that I had even accomplished some of these things already - I had been living my dreams without even realizing it and I started feeling alive again...I had dreams, goals, purpose!

Around that same time, the winds of clarity blew through my life and I felt I was being blown in the direction of Orlando. It felt good to finally know what I was doing, where I was going, and have dreams to look forward to again. I realized how important it is to have dreams to pursue, because "a person without dreams is a person without life...." Even if I don't accomplish all the things on my list, that's okay, but I shall never again stop dreaming. Life is a lot more fun if you have dreams to look forward to!

Here's my list - I've added a few new things to the end of my list, and the ones in italics are ones that I've already accomplished!

- Learn American Sign Language
- Go rock climbing in Yosemite
- Run an orphanage
- Get married :)
- Get a Master's degree
- Teach in Korea (not so sure about this one anymore!)
- Learn Spanish
- Donate a kidney (really?!)
- Cycle across Canada
- Climb Mt. Everest
- Shave my head for cancer research
- Get my SCUBA License (officially certified in Dec. 07)
- Take a test to find my IQ
- Drive a Hummer
- Back pack through South America
- Graduate Summa Cum Laude (May 06)
- Read the entire Bible through, in order
- Ride an elephant
- Go on a geological dig
- Be a missionary (currently!)
- Go sea kayaking
- Go skinny dipping with my husband :)
- Visit all 7 continents (only 2 more to go!)
- Play with lion cubs in Africa
- Make a patch-work quilt
- Go sky diving
- Be a librarian in a school or small community for a while
- Learn how to make Apple Butter from scratch

So there are my dreams......what are yours?