Freedom to Dream

I have a dream.  No, it's nothing as radical or society altering as another speech beginning with those iconic words - but for me, it is just as important.  For me, it's life.  It's my future, and what I want from it.  I was walking in Downtown Lawrence today, just people watching and wanting to be part of this city I'm learning to love when I started realizing that dream more and more.  It's simple.  It's small.  But it's what I want.  As a woman in the 21st century, I have the freedom to be and do what I want.  I can be a housewife, or I can be a CEO.  I can be in the Peace Corps, or I can own my own business.  Sometimes I think a lot of women forget that even 50 years ago, that wasn't the case.  There were road blocks and barriers everywhere.  But now, I can be who I want.  As I was walking, I started thinking about how differently my life might have turned out if I had been born in another decade.  Would I be as independent?  Or would I be married right now?  Not that marriage and independence are mutually exclusive, I believe quite the opposite...but back half a century ago...marriage was the destination.  Now, it's a luxury along the way.


I realized as I was walking that I envy the simple.  I want to be part of that couple taking their kids to Downtown, carting balloons on their wrists on a sunday afternoon.  I want to be part of that life.  I want to tie the strings of the balloons on the wrists of kids and teach them to respect people and be kind.  It was a reality that even a few years ago I didn't think  I wanted.  I thought I'd want to be a famous doctor living a life I controlled in New York or LA.  Something powerful, someone unstoppable.  I sat in the lab and wondered what discoveries I'd make.  As I mixed chemicals and found the outputs, I felt that was the life I was destined to live.  That life, for many reasons, would have prevented kids...at least in part.  I couldn't expose a child to those chemicals while pregnant and taking a year or more off to carry a child...I don't know that my career would wait for me.  A year in science is an eternity.  Being passionately in love with science and chemistry...this wasn't a sad decision, it was picking one love over something I didn't even think I wanted.  When I hung up my lab coat - that still hangs, stained, in my closet - I put away that forced reality.  I stepped away from being forced to make a choice.  Now, I am on the precipice of getting both.  Being in a job where I can make a difference, but also have a family.  You don't have to give up children to be a writer. Now the picture is changing.  Suddenly I don't have to pick between life as a powerful woman and life with love of a family.  Maybe, just maybe, I can have both.  If my screenwriting takes off, I can write from anywhere.  I can be with a husband where ever his job may take us and live life anywhere we want.  That's an idea I've never really had until now.   Before, between career and a family, I was torn.  I didn't want to disappear...that's my biggest fear - becoming nothing.  But now...I have the chance to be remembered and have a life.  It's surreal.


I've never limited myself to being alone.  I wouldn't have the life I wanted being alone.  I'm a people person.  I love people, I need people.  And while I've never NEEDED a man to survive, having one is something I want.  I want someone to be ingrained in my life.  Someone to share those moments with.  Someone to do things on a whim with me.  Someone who holds me accountable to someone other than myself.  Someone to let me take care of them - and in turn take care of me when I need it.  It's not the MRS degree that my predecessors were forced to get.  It's just wanting a partner.  A friend who will love me no matter what.  I want the marriage.  But the great thing is, I'm not forced into it.  I'm allowed to just...want it now.  I'm not expected to be Mrs. ______ the day I graduate college.  Hell, I'm not expected to drop out of college so I can have kids for my husband.  I'm just expected to be and do what I want.  Do women out there realize how different that life, that outlook is from 50 years ago?


I wonder sometimes if I'm letting down the female pioneers that paved the way for me to have this life by wanting to have that family and be simple.   But then, I realize that's what those women fought for - was for me to have the CHOICE.  Because of them, I can be a high powered CEO if I want.  But I can also be a housewife.  I don't think either fit me anymore.  Being a CEO, I could do that, but if I wanted a family, I couldn't live so much of my life away from them.  I know myself, I will fall head-over-heels for my kid(s).  Being a housewife, let's face it...I was never cut out for that work.  Have you tasted my cooking?  But women who fought to give me the right to vote, who proved my gender to be as powerful as the other...those women gave me this dream.  They allowed me to breathe and live the life I wanted.  As I was walking, I thought back on what they went through.  What their lives must have been like and because of their work...I can't relate.  I've never been turned away from a job because of my sex.  I've only once been belittled because of my gender (thank you KU science department) and I overcame that with no shake to my confidence because I knew I was capable.

So my dream, how little and small...is real because of those who fought in the past to give me that freedom.  I wish I could thank them, and this is my way.  Putting down in words the gratitude I feel for them giving me the choice to be whatever I want.  I can be the woman who roars thanks to them.  Their sacrifices gave me a life of freedom.

Live, Laugh and Above All....Love

Experiences

Life is about experiences.  I think I've reached a point in my life where I can safely say that's my belief - life is about experiences.  Small ones, big ones, random ones, planned ones...all lead somewhere.  Take you somewhere.  Make you someone.  Think about it.  You wouldn't be you without your experiences.  The thing is, a lot of us are too afraid to start experiencing like we should.  We're afraid we'll fall or afraid we'll fail.  Sometimes we're even afraid we'll succeed.  But in the end, those are the experiences you miss out on and your fear becomes who you are.  Your fear becomes your soul.

Bad experiences teach me so much more than good ones do.  So I've started thinking about them in the context of how they will fit into the puzzle of my life.  Of course I'll still get down at times, you can't avoid it - without lows you can't have highs....but they don't pull me down as far as they used to because I look for the bigger picture.  I've learned from the bad people in my life who I don't want to be.  I've learned that they're suffering far more than I am because I don't have to live their life.  They let me feel how it is to be treated certain ways and in turn, I know not to cause that pain to someone else.  Them making me feel that prevents me from making hundreds feel that.  I think it's a fair trade.  But it's only achieved if you stop, and think about life that way.  If you stop feeling like the bad experiences are the end of the road.  That only happens once in everyone's life at the most.  For many, the stop at the end of our journey is a pleasant one.  But until that last stop, everything will get better and when you are done experiencing the bad....the Universe tends to throw you something good to balance things out.

Good experiences make me remember what life is all about.  It's about relationships and love.  Not just romantic, fall into each other's arms kind of love...but love for a friend, love for a stranger, love for a family member.  Just love.  Laughing with people you care about is the great thing about continuing to breathe and exist.  You are happy, but you also are making others happy.  By being there, you're sharing your positivity with someone else and even if you're close to that person and know all their little secrets...you really don't know all their little secrets and your time with them may be changing their life.  The good is what we live for and it's what we strive for.  It's why we're here.  And yes, the big moments - weddings, child birth, engagements - those moments are the makings of photo albums....but the little moments in between...walking downtown with someone on a cold night, making eye contact with someone you know is going to be in your life for some reason for the first time, holding hands for the first time, seeing a friend smile....those little things are what keep us moving.  They're the uncaptured moments that make our life a wonderful journey.

Experience.  Live and love.  Just experience.  Because even if it is a bad one, you learn from it and are ready for the next one.

Live, Laugh and Above All....Love.