November 30, 2011
I don’t know about your Big Dream, but mine was born in a flash when I laid eyes on Europe as a teen. I gotta move here, I thought.
A decade or two passed. There was always some excuse: too far, too expensive, too late, too early, too impractical, too scary, too risky, too crazy. Too, too, too. There was marriage along the way, and it was too hard to convince my husband. The dream remained nothing more than that. A fantasy moldering in a dark corner of my mind. Another decade passed: 9-11, my mother’s death, more gray hair.
You try hard to push it away. To pretend a dream is just not that important.
Then came the day “when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” (Anais Nin)
But it was a slow flowering; there were long delays and growing pains. That frequent feeling of What in hell’s name am I doing? What don’t I just go back to where I belong?
I was looking through photos the other day and found this. It caused a small feeling of horror.
My kitchen 2009-2010:
But I’ve learned: it is so worth letting yourself bloom.
There will be tears, fears, the gnashing of teeth. That’s inevitable.
Push through it and grow.
What a gift to yourself.
What are you waiting for?
My kitchen 2011
