Full Circle

It's funny how, as children, we think we know exactly what we want out of life only to grow into a life that throws us curve balls and changes our views. 

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

                        ~Langston Hughes 

When I was in first grade art class, we painted a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. Now, as an adult, I think that assignment is preposterous. What 6-year-old really knows what they want to be? And why do adults think it's okay to put that kind of pressure on such young, evolving minds. But when I painted my picture, I wanted to be a veterinarian. 

Then, just before my 12th birthday, my dog died. I was there in the vet's office that day. I knew he had been sick, and that he was old. I rememeber my mom crying, and my dad taking me out of the room to sit in the waiting room. That was the first time I'd heard the words put to sleep, but I didn't know what they meant. At that point in my life, sleeping was exactly that. It was also the first time I heard the word euthanasia, although I wouldn't remember such a complicated word until years later. 

That day my dream of being a veterinarian died alongside my childhood friend. 

But animals still ruled my world, to be sure, and soon after that, my love for horses was allowed to blossom into a full-fledged passion. 

There were so many "problems" with the path I wanted to take and how the world was set up for people of my generation and economic standing. I was expected to go to college and get a 4-year degree, so I searched hard for a school that offered the education I was looking for without taking me far from home.

It's important to note that my parents were nothing but supportive of my dreams. For Christmas one year in high school, they gave me a book called Careers for Horse Lovers. I read that book cover to cover and landed on breeding. It fit with my passion for horses and my interest in genetics. 

The problem was that there were very few colleges that offered equine majors, especially ones that were closer to home for me. (I had medical reasons for wanting to be close to home, and I had always been tightly tied to my family.) My high school guidance counselor didn't know what to do with a young girl who wanted to go to college to learn about running a horse breeding farm, so I was basically on my own. 

It was no different once I did find a school that offered what I wanted and was close to home. The school had other issues for me personally, but the biggest was that I had discovered I could learn more in the barn than the classroom. I had also discovered a love for writing. When I went to my academic advisor seeking guidance, he told me to switch my major to Mass Communications and minor in Equine Studies. 

Without getting into it, Mass Comm was not for me. It wasn't at all what I was looking for, and so college quickly became an expensive prison against which I began to rebel. 

At one point, I took a continuing education class at the sustainable living center at that school. It was a simple class where we learned how to drive the paired Percheron draft horses. We took turns driving them with a wagon, and then we got to try our hand at plowing. The ground was hard, and the horse-drawn plow was not easy to control because you had to keep the horses moving and going straight while also using your feet to press the plow into the soil to create a trench for the seeds. The first two rows were split between most of the students, and neither one had a straight stretch. Like I said, it was hard. 

On the third row, my turn started just past a third of the way in. I drove those massive black beauties straight and true, keeping a consistent depth to the trench. The teacher told me to finish the row, but at the end, he aksed me to turn them and do the next row. To my delight, he was so happy with my control, he had me finish the small field. 

As I write this, remembering this little detail of my first steps into life as an adult, I realize I was put there for a reason. I was being tested, but I wasn't ready to step up. And life was going to throw me more curves to test my determination. I would founder each time, drawing more and more back into a shell of the woman I was meant to become. . .

• I flopped at college.
• I lost my horse to colic.
• I lost so much in a house fire.
• I got lost in a controlling relationship.

This was a span of almost 10 years, and it's important to point out that there were underlying systems that were driving me on this unfulfilling path, and a lot more happened than what I've listed here. 

By this time I had given up on my dreams of having a farm. With the loss of my horse, I had given up on ever having another. I didn't want to go through that pain again. And I certainly didn't beleive I could ever afford one. 

But Spirit--God, Source, Creator, whatever you choose to call that divine energy--has a way of bringing you back if you're willing to be quiet and listen. Since my husband and I moved our family to our current little homestead 14 years ago, my adolescent dreams have reawakened. They aren't exactly the same now, because my own expansion as a sovereign being has sparked life into surrounding interests. Interests that weave together to create a beautiful tapestry of education and regeneration. 

My biggest concern at this point is that so much time has passed since those dreams were born in a young heart. I still have very BIG dreams, though, and while I recognize that I may need to make shifts, that doesn't mean I can't reach them if I put my heart and soul into it. I have even watched as some dreams have manifested and shown me that all things are possible. 👇

Never give up on your dreams. They were put in your heart becasue you were meant to achieve them.