To Dream the Impossible Dream

Last Friday on a family bike ride I got to dreaming--dreaming of being a nurse.  The most medical knowledge I can claim is that I trained to be an EMT in college (but never took the test to get licensed) but I love the idea of medicine.  For years I thought that I wanted to be a doctor (until I learned what really happens at medical school and I decided that I didn't have the self esteem to survive that) so instead of studying people I studied plants. I love plants too.

If I knew where my life would be today 10 years ago I would have studied to be a nurse. (Don't take me too seriously because a year ago I was seriously thinking of getting a PhD in sociology and the year before that I was thinking that I really wanted an MBA.)  I would work one or two days a week when my kids were little then, when they were grown and in school full time, I would study to be an nurse anesthetist.  Last week the hubbs and I started talking about this little dream.  One of the best things about the hubbs is that he loves to plan.  So when he had a little down-time at work on Friday he looked up nurse anethetist programs for me (turns out there are 2 in LA) and as we took family bike ride around the lake we talked about moving to Oceanside so that I could commute and when we came home we looked up nursing programs and looked into costs and planned numbers of years in school and how many would be needed to qualify for the program.  It was thrilling. 

Thoughts of nursing and danced in my head for days and are still lingering.  I don't know if I will ever get a nursing degree (I really would love one) but the whole experience reminded me of the joy there is in dreaming. I love thinking of things to do and envisioning what a life could be like.  The life I have now has lots of space for one kind of dream.  The dream that has a couple of kids and in the mornings we walk to school.  I come home and bake, clean, garden, lunch with the ladies.  I write darling and clever content for a blog that produces income (ahhhh, my 6 month old dream of making money while blogging.......) and walk back to pick up my kidlets from school in the afternoon.  In my mommy dreams where we are rich there is also space for a nanny who watches the kids 2 days a week while I volunteer for Special Olympics or The Red Cross. 

But sometimes I miss professional dreams.  I miss dreams where the work I do is measurable and there is visible progress.  If you pass one nursing class you move on to the next class.  If I have a great parenting moment there's no place I move to--still parenting.  The progress of the work I do now will only really be seen when Claire is grown.  I'll know I'm a good parent when I see the way she interacts with others, when I see her 'mother' other people.

So maybe I'll see you in anatomy class....