The joys of realisation

For a long while now, i've been working my backside off because I want something that needs funding. Generally speaking, that's the way people do things - they see a goal that they want, they figure out how to get it, and they work to make it happen.

This is all good and it makes perfect sense to me.

However - like many people, I have many goals. And many dreams.

It occurred to me whilst driving home from work the other night that a number of my dreams and once-upon-a-time goals are now completely out of my reach forever.

This is not a pleasant realisation. But I think it may have been a cleansing one.

See, I've been working hard for a shop/studio so that I can expand the market of my business, because I love what I do and I want the opportunity to do more of it.

But in the back of my mind I have always always ALWAYS wanted to live on a property, have acreage, have a small farm with a horse or two and some sheep and goats and the whole works.

Now I'm 35, My husband is 37, and neither of us is working in a stupidly high paid profession. We have a small mortgage in a semi-rural small township that's rapidly developing into a suburb. But we do not, and will not in the foreseeable future, have the financial ability to purchase the dream property. And I suddenly realised that we never will.

I will never be able to walk out my back door and see acres of hills and bushland that belong to me, I will never get up in the morning on a weekend and ride my horse, I will never take my kids out into the paddock in the morning to hand-feed the sheep.

I will never have my big farmhouse with it's country kitchen. I will never have my entrance-hall filled with muddy gumboots. I will never live in a house where the nearest neighbour is 5 minutes down the road and WAAAAYYY out of sight.

These are things that I have dreamt of and wanted for a VERY long time.

I have, however, never WORKED towards them with the intensity of "have to" that I have been working towards my little business dream.


I'm not really sure why that is. Perhaps it was always supposed to be nothing BUT a dream?

Anyway, along with the pure and simple realisation that it will never happen, has come a change in attitude. You see, the house I live in now, and the community I interact with here - they are fantastic things. There is opportunity for a myriad of small improvements that will make our lives more pleasant, and those dreams WILL be achievable here.

My husband right now, in his lower-paying, less hours per week job, is quite possibly the happiest I have EVER seen him. It is incredible to watch him at everyday tasks now - he is so relaxed and he is a joy to spend time with.

Me? I'm over half-way to my shop goal, and it's getting more exciting every day. I'm still working a lot, but it's all good. I have removed one of the jobs from my life - so in a few weeks I'll only have 2!! - but I've picked up some extra hours elsewhere, so it's evening out.

Things are moving along. And I think it's time to lay that other dream to rest now and just go with the good things we've already got.