dreaming my dreams

I've come to realise that while I am a realist and a pragmatist in many ways, at my core I am a dreamer. I make plans in my head - constantly. Sometimes, it's mundane plans like what route I'll take home, or what chores I'll do and in what order. Those are the plans that organise my life. But then there are the bigger, wide-open, blue-sky plans. Like travelling. Or a new course. Or what kind of life I'm going to build. Those are the plans that create my life.

There are many things that are hard about separation and divorce. One of the ones I hadn't really counted on was mourning the loss of dreams. We had planned so many things. We had started travelling with the kids. We'd even done some adventure-type travelling, including a five-day hike in the Andes with the girls. We were planning more of it. And then there were plans for our house, various renovations we wanted to do to make it just the way we wanted it. And the plans to simply grow and be together. All of these plans were dreams, really, of building something amazing. We did a lot of dreaming together.

Our wedding song was the Cranberries' "Dreaming my Dreams"

I'll be dreaming my dreams with you
And there's no other place
That I'd lay down my face
And be dreaming my dreams with you.

Just thinking of that song makes me weep. I can't even bring myself to listen to it. Because it all just evaporated. Not the past, or the good memories, but the future. Poof! Like that, my future was gone, in a sense.

I am mourning those old dreams, still. And it's hard to take the old dreams and just remove him from the pictures and imagine them just as my own now. It's like I have to start fresh. Do something totally different, otherwise it just feels like refurbished dreams. And it still hurts.

I am stepping out of the in-between phase and into my new life. Inventing it all takes time, I suppose. But I'm starting to dream new dreams, little by little. One by one.