Do you dream big?

I'll admit that this quote can come off corny (I'm looking at you Courtney on those Bravo's Courtney Does Dallas trailer) but it is really fitting for what I'm feeling lately. When you are a kid it is expected for you to dream big. Adults regularly ask kids what they want to do when they grow up and never discourage their responses even if they can sound outlandish to adult sensibilities. Want to be an astronaut? Sure. Go for it. No dream is out of reach is the message you get in childhood. But as we get older the message changes from dream your little heart out to make a sensible life plan. We are no longer encouraged to dream our hearts out as we get older. Real life finds a way to get put into focus and it is easy to put the big aspirations on the shelf. 

Lately I have been thinking about my own dreams and how they have changed over the years. How did I go from the young girl who dreamed of becoming a writer who lived in New York City to the woman I am now? When I first graduated college I had lofty aspirations of actually putting that English degree to use but found the cold reality of the job market to have different plans for me. The allure of a steady occupation that I thought I would enjoy led me to teaching. While I don't in any way regret my years as a teacher, the busy work load did make it easy for me to put my writing dreams to the back of the closet. It is like I hit a mute button on the writer side of myself. I just didn't devote the time to writing and it wasn't until earlier this year when I left the profession that I truly realized how much I missed it. I missed my love of words and the joy of putting words to my thoughts and feelings. That is what brought me to start a blog. I wanted to have a place to get back to the writer part of me, the part of myself that still yearned to dream big. Having this little blog for me has reignited many of my writer dreams by reminding me how much I love the process of it all. It is good to get reminded that age has nothing to do with dreams and you are never too old to dream large.