My Dreams and Expectations… Overhauled

Being unhappy makes the people around you unhappy too. That is not fair.

My husband likes to tell me (and everyone else) that “happiness is a choice we make.” I know he’s right, and he’s my own personal miracle, but there are times when I just want – times when I need – someone else to tell me, “Hey, Amanda, you are GREAT!”

Maybe the girl I used to be is surfacing in my dreams now because she sees something is not right.

I used to be brave and all about grand adventures. I used to be the girl who never backed down and kept moving with her heart on her sleeve and caution in the dust. Sometimes, I wish I still was. I know my love for my career is true and passionate in that same vein. But that doesn’t mean I want to jeopardize all that I have worked so hard for and overcome so much to achieve.

I have seen so many people do whatever it takes to make their dreams come true. I always felt like I lived a good life and pushed to get what I want the same way. But lately I have begun to wonder if I ever tried – I mean really tried. I think to myself that I was naive in assuming that the cosmos would grant me all I would ever want in due time. Now, I pretty much have the “American Dream” – but I am seeing that my white picket fence might not be the same one I might have foreseen so many moons ago.

I love my family the most and no, I would never change that story and how messy it was to get here, where we are today. No, the object of this musing is my career and where it is taking me. Where I am going with it. I think and listen to my heart and there’s a sort of disconnect. It’s a tear that saps energy and motivation. I already have a tendency to over-think everything, and now my health is popping into the picture.

I gets the pins-and-needles feeling surging through my brain and it honestly scares me a little. Sometimes I feel stuck and do not know what to do. I am scared, worried and have this fear of failure constantly on my mind. The thing is that now (with a family), my successes and failures do not just affect me. Perhaps it’s insecurity and the growing pressure of that infernal doomsday clock we have, but I’m now contemplating that I may not be the right person for my job. My creative mindset seems to just not mesh well with what I’m doing. Perhaps it’s time to move forward.

You only live once. (Aren’t they saying “YOLO” now?) And now that I finally feel myself getting older, the thing that worries me most is not taking chances and just wasting what could be the best adventures. You can never get too old to believe that dreams really can come true.

But you can get too old to seize the opportunity.

So this foodie momma needs to stop sitting around waiting for the inevitable (whatever that may be) to happen…she needs to get it done.