Friday, May 4, 2018

Bucket List

How many of you have written your bucket list?  I didn't think I had.  I hadn't even formally thought about it to tell you the truth.  I have formally thought about my horse bucket list, I think I even blogged about it.  Things like; ride a draft horse, drive a draft team, ride a gaited horse, ride a race horse, attend Congress, etc... But for some reason, my bucket list ideas always stopped at horse related stuff.  But then, I remembered the Christmas present Sophie made for me a few years back.  It was called a dream jar.  She had carefully painted and decorated an old oatmeal can for me to keep my dreams in.  And I did for several years.  When cleaning one day last fall, the bucket got damaged and I had to take my dreams and glue them into a journal.  What an interesting process.

You see, I hadn't looked at my dreams in a while.  Here's what I learned.  Dreams change.  Dreams grow.  Different things are important to us throughout our lives.  AND... I'm certainly grateful for dreams that didn't come true.

As my dreams came true, I was supposed to take them out of the jar and throw them away.  I know that I was able to do that for many of my slips of paper as I transferred them to my journal.  Things like; family trip to the zoo, take my kids on a vacation, find the man of my dreams, etc...  It was exciting and fun to be able to say "look at those dreams that came true" and realize that finding Tim was a big part of how I was able to do that.

There were others that I'm grateful didn't come true.  Sometimes we can't make things work where we are at and just need to have a clean break and a fresh start.  Some of the dreams that I threw away were about not forcing something to happen.  Not wishing for something that wasn't possible or wasn't worth the cost.  You cannot change people and dreaming that you could, isn't always a dream you want to come true.

Looking over my dreams, I can attest that some things that were important to me then, definitely are not important to me now.  A matching bedroom set and a new bed?  Who cares?  I mean, it's nice to have a comfortable mattress, but that's about where my bedroom set dreams extend these days.  A workout area with cardio and strength training equipment?  That's what the gym is for!  And why the heck did I think I wanted a vintage ring?  Yeah, history is fun, but I barely remember to wear the jewelry I do have.  Yeah - vintage rings and the stories behind them are cool, but I have way different dreams than I used to have for sure.

I love that my dream of a small farm with a barn for my horses may come true.  There are others that are totally doable and still very vivid in my dreams today.  Like a family trip and tour of the state capitol, poor Sophie is the only family member who hasn't been.  And a new graphic design program with the training to use it would probably be a good thing too.  I take a lot of pictures.  It would be nice to go back to designing things with them.  But if we get that farm with the barn, that dream of a vacation somewhere warm with a beach probably isn't going to happen.  Or that one with the big motorhome to go horse showing and camping.  Or opening that cafe/bookstore for that matter.  But that's the cool thing about dream journals/jars.  They don't have to be realistic.  As they say, "dream big!"  But don't be afraid to enjoy the little things too.

I think it's time to update my dreams and make a new list.  And heck - maybe in a few years I will look back and tear up a few, laugh at a couple and shake my head at some too.  That's half the fun of it anyway.  Off to write my bucket list.  How about you?

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