If you are living nearly anywhere in the US, you have experienced some unusually cold weather and probably had a few choice words to share with Old Man Winter. We of course, have suffered through the cold with incredible grace and as I was changing the battery in Candace’s car in the windy cold rain that was visiting our area I made sure to cover my entire library of explicatives in English and Spanish. Throughout the misery of that adventure though, I knew that I would be happy that Candace would have a dependable car and I was earning some serious brownie points, so this Old Man Winter thing isn’t all bad.
On a similarly cold and snowy day, I was sitting at home after the powers-at-be decided that it would be better to call it a snow day than to have all of us do vehicular ice-skating to get to work … we don’t live in an area that can deal with snow/ice/sleet/winter too efficiently. Anyway, I looked out the window and imagined what it would be like to have a little one on a day such as that. I would probably not be sitting on the couch in PJs. Instead, I would be out in the cold, throwing snowballs, building snowmen, finding he gnarliest hill to sled down, basically, enjoying all that the season could throw at us. I would have to throw in the towel when my little one’s lips turned blue and we would go inside, thaw out, and drink hot chocolate talking the whole time about what the next thing we would do outside would be. (It is absolutely true what women say, men really are immature, but I plan to use that to my advantage to have some kick ass snowball fights with my kid(s) whenever we have that dream family.) As I looked away from the window though, reality (that bastard) slapped me in the face and I remembered that if I wanted to have a snowball fight, I would be out there by myself. Candace hates the cold so there would be no coaxing her out there, she was at work anyway.
I have often had these dreams of playing with my kid(s). We would be playing catch or throwing the football around but right in the middle of the image, right after the ball leaves my hand and I follow it in the air with my eyes, I realize that it is going to land on an empty spot in my yard. There is no little snotter there to catch the ball. There’s no 5 year old to jam their finger or have the ball bounce off their chest or make that amazing catch and look up at me wide-eyed with that “Did you see what I just did!” look of accomplishment in their faces … like I said, I have thought a lot about this. The point is, regardless of where my imagination has taken me, it always ends the same way, I’m not there yet.
(Disclaimer, just so everyone is aware, I have every intention of playing catch and throwing the football around with a girl or a boy. Just for the naysayers out there.)
Unlike many of our posts where we bring everything together at the end and try to distill our ramblings down into simple statements of hope, encouragement, and plans to beat up the IF monster, I really don’t have an underlying grandiose message here. Basically, I just wanted to share what I dream about and how sometimes, most times, the dream does take a bit of a dark turn when I realize I cannot make that dream a reality yet. I am not sure if you have those dreams, if your imagination pulls at your heart in some kind of subconscious sadistic plan to remind you of your struggles. But, if it does, keep dreaming. Why not? I have no intention of trying to actively stop dreaming about what I will do with our child when we finally have our family. So, sadness be damned, I am going to throw that imaginary football again with the hope that, someday, there will be a little one on the other side of the yard to catch it.
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That made my eyes tear up and gave me the sniffles because I know exactly what that is like.
Thank you for your comment Kalisu. Although it can be difficult to allow ourselves to have these dreams and can sometimes even seem selfish to want something so bad, I know it strengthens each of us to look t that dream family and say “No, not yet. But it will be!”
I very much enjoyed reading your story 🙂 Continue dreaming do it as often as you can, hold those images in your mind and feel with every part of you until it feels real! and when ever the “reality bastard” arises.. dont listen… keep imagine ♥
Thank you for your comment. We try to beat up the reality bastard at every opportunity we get. One of the best ways to do that is through all of the comments and support of our blog readers. It is our dream that we (the whole IF) community will be able to put that reality bastard on ice for good!