Living the WHOLE Dream

My friend Ken and I were talking the other day about the difference between living the dream and just dreaming.

We decided that it takes hard committed work to live the WHOLE dream. The effort to have an amazing marriage, to maintain quality relationships, and make memories that last a lifetime are worth it - if you don't settle. 

And by settling, I mean, not giving up the passion to see the dream I'm living. The WHOLE dream of  having a marriage that's work but work worth doing, being a parent, and having a home I love to be in. Living the WHOLE dream isn't living without flaws and challenges, it's seeing the dream as the perfect and imperfect beauty that it is. 

I am sure I need to focus more often, like I did on this picture, knowing I am living my WHOLE dream. Right now. Today.

Only a few more days of my Five Minute Free Write challenge - today's word is WHOLE.

START Letting Go

I wanted to be a Mom my whole life. Got married at 20 so for sure I thought I'd be done having babies by the time I was 30, right? Nope. I was 32 when I found out, on this day, 15 years ago that I finally had joined the "Mommy" club. 

I had no idea at the time the pain I was longing for. I found out I was pregnant and it was an epic celebration. I was super thrilled, as were all of our friends who had watched us struggle for over 9 years with infertility. 

I knew, in advance, from the time the umbilical cord was cut, I was going to have to START letting go. Here I am, 15 years later, learning about yet another layer of letting go. Giving our oldest more freedom, more space, more opportunities to succeed or fail is crazy hard. I am sure keeping him locked in the house for the next 5-10 years would also be challenging, but I am not sure it's a bad idea some days.

We enjoy who he's becoming. We are glad he's ours. 15 years we discovered he was on his way, and as of his actual birth day - we've had to START letting go.