One hundred twenty one days to go until the big 4-0.  Surprise, surprise, I’m on a diet!  I know you’re probably thinking this is colossally cliché of anyone about to reach a birthday signifying middle age, and you would be correct.  Over the years I have lived on a diet only to play with 20 pounds that never stays off.  This time I’m focusing on health as my motto rather than vanity.  My new approach comes from a recent education in rising cholesterol numbers.  Goodbye meat, goodbye cheese, goodbye happiness.  I’m dramatic.  You probably already grasped that fact.

So, looking back at the first question I posted yesterday regarding my life, I contemplate… what do I want to be when I grow up?  I can tell you this…  I have dreams.  Since childhood my dreams have refashioned.  I now realize I will never have the looks or acting ability to be a movie star (it’s such a shame.  To think I wasted so much time in the shower using my shampoo bottle as a makeshift microphone pretending to accept all those Emmys, Golden Globes, and Oscars…)  Even though I dabble in music and am an okay church singer, rock stardom has undoubtedly passed me by.  So now what?  What do I know for sure? I know I’m a child of God, and even with all the love and blessing in my life, He is the only real certainty I have.  Yet, I am now ready to throw caution to the wind and add more uncertainty into an already uncertain world.  I’m ready to dream big again, only this time in a more adult, middle-aged, girl-on-the-doorstep-of-40 kind of way.  I’m dreaming of writing and speaking to women who are now where I once was.

Something I could have never dreamed when I was young, because I didn’t think it possible, was that I would or could write a book.  Two years ago, I did just that.  However, my book is not fiction, and it’s definitely not the gentle, lighthearted escape someone might read to ignore their own real life problems for awhile.  My book is filled with personal tragedy.  However, it is also a story about hope.  My story begins with an 18-year-old girl and 19-year-old boy crazy in love, pledging forever to each other.  At 18, my only dream was being that hot 19-year-old boy’s wife, and the mother of his children.  Realizing the dream of becoming his wife was easy, wonderful, and completely sublime.  Becoming the mother of his children proved to be more pain to bear than any woman should ever have to endure…

I will divulge more about that tomorrow.  Until then, I have a question for you.  Have you taken time to dream lately?  If not, you really should.  It’s good for the soul.