Dreams

Dreams are funny things. They are wonderful. They help us to set goals and have something to look forward to. They can also hold us back from living in the present moment, from enjoying what is right now. As always there is this healthy balance we want to cultivate. Can we set goals without overlooking the beauty of now? When I was a little girl I dreamed of going to college. I dreamed of being a mother. I dreamed of being a teacher. Whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would say, teacher.

Way back almost thirty years ago I was pregnant with my first child. I was scared, I was excited, I was young, I was determined. I thought I knew. Then I lost the baby. All of a sudden I didn’t know anything. I was scared. I was angry. I felt powerless. After that miscarriage I remember trying to talk to my mom about my feelings. I remember her saying, “You plan too much!” Like that was the root of my problems, my sadness, my miscarriage even. I know in her own way she was trying to comfort me. As a mom I have said the ‘wrong’ thing to my children many times. I’m sure they will also have stories to tell in thirty years. 

To my mom’s point, I am a planner. I don’t make lists or stubbornly insist that things be a very precise way(my family might disagree) but I do like to know what’s next. This year has been a year of planning. In the Fall I wrote about feeling Lost when my son went to college in England. In the winter I wrote about Quiet Time and how I had been contemplating quietly on my own. I had a feeling I knew what I wanted but I needed to sit with my thoughts to find clarity. I was dreaming again.

Flashback to 1994. I had just graduated from college, moved to Virginia and as I said had a miscarriage. I was substitute teaching and within a month of my miscarriage I had a contract to teach at the most amazing public school for the Fall. I switched gears from mother to teacher. It was hard to find a teaching job back then and I felt like I had proven myself. They wanted me! I was the first college graduate in my immediate family and I was going to teach at a school full of mostly first generation children just like myself. Many children whose first language was also Spanish. I had always dreamed of being a teacher. I couldn’t believe I was fulfilling this dream. Everyday I would go to work and feel inspired by the children, by my fellow teachers, by the amazing school. Those years teaching were absolute joy. I went to ‘work’ and knew I was in the right place. I had planned for this since I was in elementary school and now here I was, living my dream.

Even though I loved my job I left teaching after having my first child. I couldn’t believe how much I missed it. The sense of loss and loneliness I felt was more than I expected. I wanted to go back but also couldn’t bear the thought of leaving my baby. I stayed home. I started teaching aerobics at the local gym. It sort of satisfied my need to teach but was a much shorter time commitment. Then I was pregnant again and the dream of going back to teaching started to drift further away. How could I give as much of myself as I wanted to teaching and be present for my children? I didn’t give up the idea of teaching though it started to feel further and further away. I stopped planning to come back and immersed myself in mothering. 

Third child and then I fell in love with Yoga. Of course I had to become a yoga teacher. It was written in the stars. My dad had brought yoga to my life as a young child. I was coming back to a practice that had been a part of my foundation. This finally began to fulfill my need to teach and teaching in the schools receded further into the abyss. I opened a yoga studio with a friend, was busier than I ever imagined being and unbelievably I had a fourth child. Life was so full… until things started to fall apart. I had exceeded my own capacity and was running on empty. The seams of my well planned life could not hold any longer. I sold my half of the yoga studio to my friend and partner and ran away to the West Coast with my husband, four children, and dog.

Over the last nine years here in the East Bay life has been hard. The problems we were running away from followed us to Berkeley. So much has happened. So much sorrow and loss interspersed with so much joy as well. The last two years alone have challenged so many of us to rethink who we are, where we are, what we are doing and why we are doing it. The world has drastically changed and so have we. And so amidst it all…

I remembered. The dream came back to me again. Teaching. I am a teacher. I have always been a teacher. I want to finally come back to my first love. Being an elementary school teacher. At one point in the last five years I was talking to my oldest and saying maybe it was time to go back.

He said, ‘Mom you’ve been talking about that forever.’ 

He was so right. So I stopped talking about it. I stopped saying maybe and this year I felt it. Something clicked. It was time. No more talking. This year has been a year of contemplating. A year of listening. Time has gone by so quickly and part of me thinks I’m so old. It’s too late. 

It’s not.

I have so much to give. I’m not done yet. Yes, I am much older now. Yes, I am scared. I don’t know as much as I thought I did when I was twenty four and freshly graduated from college.

I’ve been offered a position to teach Kindergarten in Oakland this Fall. I have come full circle again. I have a dream. My childhood dream. I have always been a teacher.  A yoga teacher. An elementary school teacher. It’s really happening. I am listening, trusting in myself and so incredibly excited to begin again, to have this opportunity to do what I love. So that is the story, the story of a dream, a dream that evolved and changed over time and was never lost.