Dreams and Dreaming

A view of Longs Peak from my parents’ home. Did I post this photo already? Anyway, it’s worth posting again because it is a lovely mountain — Longs is on the right with the “keyhole” and Meeker peak on the left.

Greetings, Readers.

I’m finding my rhythm again with blogging and finding it’s a little hard to do when Internet access means going to the library or to Starbucks. Add to the mix that I am still job searching at the moment, and getting into that rhythm is not the easiest of things (although I have had a couple of promising interviews for jobs where selections have not yet been made, as of this past week. I’m crossing my fingers!).

Living with my mother and stepfather as well as going back to “square one” (AGAIN) is not how I envisioned my life at age 46, and yet I am finding it is a perfect time to dream, to allow myself the space and the time to create through envisioning what it is I hope my life to be from here on out.

First of all, those of you who have been following since An Alien Parisienne know one reason I started to write the blog in Paris was to give myself a good reason to go out and live life. I was so riddled with anxiety the first year I was in Paris, I could barely leave the apartment. No longer eating foods with gluten and dairy beginning in 2009 was the start of my shedding anxiety and bouts of depression in my life.

Five-and-a-half years later, it’s had a profound effect: while my situation of joblessness and living with parents, and being financially insecure would have completely freaked me out years ago, I find myself generally approaching life with a relaxed and positive attitude at this point, free of debilitating depression and anxiety. It’s nothing short of remarkable. I know from a very deep place within that “It’s going to be okay.”

It took a lot to process through the sorrow of the past couple of years, the reasons why I had to leave Paris and all the fallout from it. (Honestly, I’m just too lazy to link everything in, I don’t necessarily want “pingbacks” on those blogs connecting to this one, and if you are curious, I know you can find things, if you want to read. Look up An Alien Parisienne and Do Overs in Denver.)

Up until a year ago, I was still really suffering a lot. I have learned, however, with Zen-like manoeuvring, that letting go, coming into a present-time neutrality within oneself, really is the way to come to peace with things to which we have attached ourselves and things of which we have had to let go. It’s funny that in “looking for ballast” sometimes the best thing we can do is “drop ballast” and float even higher above our circumstances.

Still, feeling my feelings first and then letting them go has been key to this, to make sure they are not swept under the rug.

So what about dreams? I’m dreaming so much these days! Mostly my dreams have been about getting a job so that I can begin to find a way to build a “tiny house.” What is such a thing, you ask? It’s building a home onto a flatbed trailer around 8’x18’ or even longer: 20, 26 or 32-feet. (Omigosh, I’m sure some of you want metric, so… There are roughly three feet in a meter. These homes are something like 2.5 x 6 meters. And about 13 feet high, so four-ish meters?) I have been keeping a pinboard on Pinterest of my dreams for a home of my own like this, my very own hippie-gypsy portable house! You can find the pinboard here: Karin Pinterest, Tiny Homes and Small Living

I dream of making a couple of loft areas for Julian and I to sleep, or maybe a little sleeping nook on the ground “floor” for Julian, as I have seen in some designs of tiny homes on wheels.

I want to park it someplace peaceful, and go to my simple job (the one I will have with low-stress) because living in one of these homes, while radically small in some ways, does not require even full-time work to live and eat and be and have fun in life. There is no more striving to have more, to buy more, to keep too many possessions in a home, no money that is used to pay for upkeep of these things. I want this kind of a life.

I dream of getting back into yoga. I miss it so much. I follow my school in Paris, Ashtanga Yoga Paris, on Facebook. I just saw this helpful video last week where owner and instructor Linda Munro demonstrates how to release tension from one’s neck and shoulders. It’s here, if you want to check it out on YouTube: Neck & Shoulder Relaxation 

Soon, I think, I hope I can go back to a yoga studio. I do so much better in a group setting for yoga than in a home practice, but I have to do something, so maybe I need to re-think this.

Sometimes I dream of romance in my life again. Mostly, though, it upsets me (I’m laughing at myself a bit here, but it’s true — I find it upsetting because I have had a lot of upsets!). I try not to invest myself too much in this area in my mind right now, but yes, I think about how someday, sometime, I want to be with that person who has a similar understanding of how I see life. Probably someone who likes tiny houses, minimalist living, and yoga, haha! Or someone who understands why I want these things.

I dream of independence in any case: taking care of myself and taking care of Julian, no longer living with parents or dependent on anybody. I dream of this freedom. I’m thankful I am living in a place where I believe, perhaps optimistically (of course optimistically!), my dreams are possible.

Of what do you dream? Have you taken the time to daydream with freedom? Not an insistence of “I HAVE to have these things NOW” like Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I just finished reading that book at last — I got a copy at the library. I have seen the movie a gajillion times but never read the book cover to cover until now!). I mean dreaming with the freedom of, “Wouldn’t it be nice? The world will meet me in my needs! I’m free to imagine!”

Dreaming like this right now is pretty much all I’ve got, besides job applications, Facebooking (making that a verb, like the French do), and watching Home and Garden Television channel on my parents’ TV. It’s a rich dream life I have. I also believe when I dream like this, many of those dreams can become a reality, in some shape or form.

So here’s to dreaming dreams. I hope you have some enjoyable ones of your own!

Posted by Karin B on October 11, 2014

https://lookingforballast.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/dreams-and-dreaming/