Rediscovering My Dreams

Aug
2012
12

posted by on Life

4 comments

Diptic

Dreams.

You have to have them right? Everyone tells you to cling close to them, never give up on them, follow your dreams. What happens when you don’t have any? Not even a one?

That’s where I was for the past couple years. All my dreams, aspirations and crazy, out there ideas had just…poof. Vanished. Creativity dried up, motivation to do much else than sit on my sofa was at an all time low. It reflected heavily here on my blog, with writer’s block and dry spells lasting months where I just had nothing to say. I would read everyone’s blog posts dripping with inspiration and big huge things I couldn’t even fathom going on in my life. I didn’t see big things for myself anymore. I had been put in mediocre and I was starting to believe, after a year and a half, that I wasn’t any better than that. I only deserved mediocre.

Pretty heavy, shitty stuff, right?

2012 has been the year of all the things. It has marked the shift from believing in only mediocrity to believing I can achieve greatness, again. Over the past eight months I have changed my life in so many ways and discovered things I like to do that I was unaware of before. I really do love gardening. I love cooking and not just for other people. I used to hate cooking for myself, only for other people, thinking elaborate meals were only meant for others to enjoy. But I’m worthy of yummy meals when I’m single so I’m making creamy avocado pasta and teriyaki steak for me and only me.

You know what else I’ve discovered? My dreams.

They were still there. They just were hiding and they’ve come creeping back out from the corners in my brain they were hiding in. They have actually surprised me by what they are.

My dream of designing is still there; it’s growing stronger and I’m trying to figure out what I want to do with it, how to incorporate it into my current life. I dream of travel, the itch incredibly strong and I’m only whetting it with a weeklong trip to San Francisco and Seattle in October. My desire to leave the country is getting stronger and stronger still. Adventure is calling me.

There’s a new dream that wasn’t there before. A dream that deep down I know has a lot of potential and I’m so excited about it that I’m holding it even closer to my heart, telling a select few but not wanting to announce it to the world. Even though I need to make that first step to get this dream rolling into reality, I still want to coddle it a little longer but I know I should make it public. That will have to come later this week

This weekend was spent dreaming. Something I haven’t done in a long time. I read two books, went to bed at 9pm on Friday (the past two weeks of Olympics, VEDA and working out and not sleeping catching up with me), met up with friends for drinks, had brunch with 99 cent mimosas and laid in my hammock. Another lovely, lovely weekend and I couldn’t be happier.

Diptic

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  • http://superduperfantastic.com/ suki

    :-)  

  • BelleRenee

    Gorgeous. :-)

  • Katie

    Ashley – this is great and I can definitely identify. I used
    to have so much inspiration and drive and then when it goes away, I start to
    get worried that maybe the clarity and passion will never come back. What I
    have found though is that I wasn’t putting enough down time into my life. I realized
    that if I didn’t give myself unstructured time to just be me, then I would keep
    following other people’s ideas and schedules, which doesn’t create fertile
    ground for dreams and passions to take hold. Now that I am trying to work part
    time, I am finding that the unstructured time is paying off. There is time to
    just be and reconnect and I am trusting that the seeds I am planting will grow.

    Good luck to you!
    Katie Albee

  • http://smallandcharming.com/ Natasha Hollerup

    It’s so great that you’re getting your dreams and aspirations back. The possibilities only become more endless from there, as I told another friend of mine.