I remember being in Kindergarten talking with my friends about what we wanted to be when we grew up.  One of my friends wanted to be a doctor, one an astronaut, one the president, one a movie star and one a garbageman during the day and a superhero by night.  As for me, I wanted to be a horse and ballerina.  In my mind it was all quite possible and not odd at all. Looking back on that I'd say I was definitely a dreamer.   I even remember visualizing myself as a horse, wearing hoop earrings and having polished nails while sitting at a table with all my friends. I was also a ballet dancer, a human ballet dancer. Logic and laws of nature aside, I knew what I wanted to be. If that doesn't qualify me as a dreamer than nothing does!

As the years passed and I grew older,  life's hard knocks and the constant efforts of well meaning family tried to shake the whimsy out of me.  Outwardly I turned into a practical person who supported herself and survived in a world that is not always kind.  I took responsible, respectable jobs, drove sensible cars and lived in tastefully decorated apartments.  I took the practical route, and for the most part lived a happy life, but deep down inside that dreamer was still there. I may not have been dreaming of joining the equine family (or at least I was no longer openly admitting to it ), but I was still very much the dreamer. 

For the longest time, I used to think that being practical and being a dreamer were mutually exclusive.  I thought that I had to choose one.  In my mind, dreams were the only thing that kept me going when the cold cruel world nearly brought me to my knees.  The truth is both dreaming and being practical did.  (My parents were right about making responsible choices! Who knew?)

My practicality got me up and out the door every morning when all I wanted to do was pull the covers over my head and hide. My practicality is what drove me to take a second and sometimes a third job when I needed to. My dreaming gave me the release I needed while working that 3rd shift cleaning job, it also allowed me to remain hopeful.  While pushing a vacuum in one of the random office buildings I was cleaning, I had an 'A-Ha' moment. I was an artist!  I didn't have to wait for someone to give me that title. I already was one.  This realization gave me permission to reacquaint myself with the interests and talents I'd abandoned.  I now had a newfound respect for the things I was good at and a focus to fuel them. 

Now that I'm a chronological adult (I still feel like a kid most of the time), I allow the practical and the dreaming parts of me peacefully coexist. I still have a respectable, responsible job, but I drive a pink car and I live in an outrageously colorful apartment.  I'm still not a horse though......  Sadly some dreams are not meant to ever become reality. That doesn't mean that my dream was useless, just remembering a time when I innocently thought I could be both a horse and a dancer makes me happier than words can say. 

What I've learned from all of this is that I don't have to fit myself into one column.  I don't have to be an either/or; I can be an and.  To be honest, no one is an either/or, we're all ands.  I'm a dreamer and I'm practical. I'm an  artist and someone's employee.  One doesn't have to choke out the other. I also understand that when my parents were trying to guide me onto a career path all those years ago they weren't trying to stifle me, even though it felt like it at the time. They were just trying to get me to keep my whimsy in check and it saved my life.  If that naive whimsical girl that I was back then didn't have street smarts, she'd never have gotten to the other side of the dark days she lived through.

So here's to all the dreamers out there!

Keep flying high,  just don't forget where the ground is so you can always land on your feet when you need to.