I dreamed a dream...

Once upon a time, long, long ago...ok, not THAT long...there was a girl who had a goal.  And this goal was a good goal, and this girl was a clever girl.  Being a clever girl, she devised a plan to reach that goal.  She worked hard, stayed focused and achieved that goal.  Or goals, really.  There were several.  And then she achieved what she thought was sort of the ultimate goal.  And after that, she got lost...You see, after achieving that sort of ultimate goal, she wasn't really sure what to set goals for.  And more than that, her life was no longer her own and the achieving of said goals wasn't really up to her anymore.  And she wasn't really sure what to do.

When I was young, I knew what I wanted.  I mean, I KNEW, and there wasn't going to be much that could dissuade me from achieving what I wanted.  When I was in early high school, I had long term goals, mid term goals and short term goals.  All to achieve what I wanted out of life.  I knew I wanted to have a good job and be able to earn a living doing something I wanted to do.  And I knew the way to achieve that was to go to college.  And I knew the way to get into college was to get a scholarship (my parents would not be able to pay for my education, I had always known that).  And I knew the way to get a scholarship was to get good grades in school.  And I knew the way to get good grades in school was to do my homework and kill the tests.  So that's what I did.  I worked hard in high school, did my work, got into the advanced classes, sailed through the AP tests to earn college credit, did the extracurricular stuff and WHAMMO.  I got what I wanted.  Good grades, which got me accepted to good schools, and yes, a scholarship at one of them.  So, off I went to jolly old BYU.  I couldn't afford any of the other schools that I had been accepted to, dang it, because a couple of them were pretty posh.

During my high school years, there was a lot of stress and unpleasant things that happened in my life, but I wasn't going to let those things get in the way of WHAT I WANTED.  Granted, due to circumstances beyond my control, I did have to put college off a year to work, but I had earned enough credit in high school to skip my freshman year, so it wasn't a big deal.

So, I went to college, and I aced college and when I graduated, I had a job waiting for me.  And when I got fed up with that job, there was another job waiting for me.  And when I started to get tired of that job, there was my dream job waiting for me.  And I went for it.  It wasn't luck that led to me having these jobs waiting for me.  At least not completely.  It was because I was GOOD at what I did.  I worked hard, I put in the time, I developed the necessary skills (and the God given talent I had) and I got those jobs based on merit.  I was the one for the job.

So, yeah, solidly set goals and a serious determination got me what I wanted.  I was determined to not let any setbacks prevent me from achieving those goals.  And there were setbacks, let me tell you.  There were major things that got in my way, that could have prevented me from achieving my goals, but I didn't let them.

Along the way to the major goal, I had some bucket list type things I wanted to do.  And I did them.  I wanted to spend some time in London.  So I did, with some very good friends in a fabulous little flat.  I shared a rickety bunkbed with another girl in a long narrow room which housed one other girl as well.  We had minimal storage space, no private space, the tiniest kitchen ever and it was glorious.  Best time of my life.
I wanted to work in various and sundry theatres in the US.  And I did.  I wanted to be a designer for a bridal company, and I was.  I wanted to create beautiful things, and I did.  It was awesome.  I look back on my college years and the years just following and they were fantastic.  Wonderful.  Perfect.  Even with all the issues and problems that occurred.  I made, and still have, some amazing, beautiful friends from that time in my life.

Then, after working and having a great time for a few years, I got married.  Getting married was only sort of loosely on my goal list.  I wasn't really sure that I wanted to do it.  My parents had gotten divorced my senior year of high school and the parents of two of my BFF's were divorced and those that weren't, most of them had troubled marriages.  It didn't look good to me and wasn't something I really wanted.  I certainly didn't want to do it when I was younger, but as I got older I realized that maybe I did.  And, eventually, I went ahead and got married.  

Fast forward 5 years and I achieved my biggest goal, which was to have a child.  It wasn't easy, in fact, it was damn hard and nearly killed me (literally).  But that's another story.  She was worth every bit of it, though, the Small Daughter.  She is a treasure and the absolute light of my life.  (And is sitting here next to me with the raddest Heather Locklear hair, ever)

And then, I thought I had achieved it.  I had college, England, job, marriage, baby.  All that was left was to live my life.  Which I did.  And then a few years ago, it all went belly up.  Big time.  And I wasn't sure what to do.  And I tried to regain control of things and it didn't work.  And then last year, my marriage went belly up.  And I have been trying to regain control of things ever since.  And I am doing a lousy job of it. Sometime between having a baby and losing my marriage, I lost my ability, talent, drive, whatever, to achieve the goals, or to even set them, really.  I'm sort of adrift in things right now.  I don't even know what goals to set.  What do I want to be?  Who do I want to be?  What do I want to do?  I have a job, but that is all it is, a job.  It isn't a career, I will never make a good living at it.  Do I want to switch?  Should I switch?  I know what I want, big picture-wise.  I want to have enough money to properly raise my daughter.  I want to be the one to raise her.  And I still have yet to figure out how to achieve that.  I want to get out of this...funk, I am in.  I am swimming through a very thick cloud and I can't seem to find my way out.  Or find the determination to do so.