The Weight of Dreams

Dreams. 

It's a common thread between all people. I don't mean sleepy-time rendezvous with famous actors and actresses. When I refer to dreams I mean life-goals. I'm sure you hear it all the time, "If I won the lottery, I would..." "Someday, I'll be a..." "I would be happy if I could..."

Everyone has them. Some are smaller than others. "I want to get through tomorrow without smoking a cigarette." Some are medium-sized. "I want to open up a bakery." Some are huge. "I want to cure cancer."

While dreams differ from person to person and some are 'small' and some are 'large' none is more important than the other. A man whose dream is to quit smoking is no less important that a woman who pushes herself to get one step closer to opening a bakery. These both rival even a lofty, world-altering dream like curing cancer because regardless of the impact of their dreams, they each have one. They each wake up every day knowing that one day, someday, they are going to get to that place.

I hear often that families and relationships break apart because of dreams. A man leaves his wife because she doesn't support his dream of being a pilot. A woman leaves her husband because he doesn't want her to become an actress, ogled by men across the country. Even if they stay together, the bitter bite of resentment tailors their day-to-day life.

A relationship won't function properly if both parties aren't willing to support the dreams of their counterparts. This means celebrating successes, suffering through losses, making sacrifices together. As one. Each person has to be willing to put in the time, labor, money and effort into the dream for it to succeed. However, a dream cannot come true when the dreamer won't put the effort into it. No matter how much you want the dream of your partner to come true, you cannot accomplish it for them. You can support them. You can walk through the hard work with them. You can even reap the reward with them. But it won't be as hard for you... It won't be as sweet a payoff in the end.

I remember when Bryan and I were seriously talking about getting married. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but it was almost like a business negotiation. Sure, we had love and passion, but were we compatible? Could we support each other's dreams and live a life together? We went back and forth to make sure that we would be true partners, chasing after our own and each others dreams. That we wouldn't discourage the other persons goals and we would certainly not let they other one give up after meeting obstacle after obstacle. We would figure it out together, we would make it happen.

All of us recognize that there are seasons in life. Hills and valleys. Life is unbearably hard at times and others it coasts by, fluid and effortless. There are times that you put yourself aside and give to others, because maybe it's not your moment.

What I want to know is this: What happens when your moment arrives? The time has come; Your dream is on the horizon. You can almost grab hold of it. It's on the tip of your tongue. You are waiting for the support, sacrifice and encouragement from your partner that you have given for however long a season and slowly you realize that it is not coming. The window of opportunity for your dream to come true is only so long, heck, you can even see the end in sight... And you're alone. The return on your investment in making your partners dream come true is not paying off.

What do you do?
Do you let it pass and hope it comes around again?
Do you cry?
Do you approach your partner and say pay up?
How do you recover from that kind of let down?
What do you do with the emotions? The anger? The sadness and heartbreak? The fear that you've committed yourself to someone who didn't truly have the intention of supporting you as you supported them?
How do you continue to support the dream of the person who let yours pass?

More importantly, how can you keep the weight of your failed dream from crushing your soul and the spirit of your relationship?

Confusing Directions

This might seem random, but I find that I am a tad more honest and open when I blog at night. Is that weird? I mean... I generally think of myself as a very honest and straight forward person. But even I have my moments when I am guarded... although I try not to be on here.

Last Tuesday night, Ryan, Denise, Andy, Anna, Anna's sister Sarah, their friend Erin and myself went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I liked it a lot, obviously. But I felt that the book had a great line up for a screenplay. As much as I understand that the book will always have more details, I feel that the lines of the movie should parallel to the book. I think that the Half-Blood Prince was one such book that could have been translated into the theater without risking too much of the meat.

I was pretty disappointed. There were little things that were changed for seemingly no reason at all. Anna also made a great point: The movie focused so much on the relationships of the characters. But not on the most important one - the love story between Harry and Jenny. This story was all about building our knowledge of Voldemort. And yet we didn't learn very much about him. We didn't learn about Merope or what happened to Voldemorts father. We don't see what happens to Voldemorts grandfather. The whole thing really saddened me. The entire premise of the Half Blood Prince is to learn how to defeat the Dark Lord - and yet we hardly learned anything at all.

Anywho, I am still happy with the books and still an avid fan. Hopefully the next two movies will be worth the craziness in this one.

Early Wednesday morning I got up and loaded the Vdub. I made great time to Alisons' house where I am spending my vacation.

It has been so nice playing with Emma and Brody. They are so cute. Impossibly so. Last night, Alison and Mark went out on a date and Emma and I had a date of our own. We had dessert which consisted of a freshly cut pineapple that was delicious. We played Crainium's Hullabaloo and we watched Pinocchio... Which I haven't seen in years.

Okay... so maybe I am extremely lame for not knowing this, but does anyone else realize the similarities between Pinocchio's Hi-Diddelee-Dee (An Actors Life For Me), Snow White's Yo Ho, Yo Ho, It's off to Work We Go and Pirates of the Caribbeans A Pirates Life For Me?

I just put that together. Here are the links:

Pinocchio
Pirates of The Caribbean
Snow White

Moving on from that distraction...

I've been stressed lately. All this life stuff. When did things get so complicated? It feels like my life as 360ed in the past few weeks. The beginning of July set off a course of events and now I'm left with the remnants and I have no clue what to do with them. It's like I am trying to deal with it but I really don't know where to begin the process.

So, I do what I can.. I pray. Last night after the kids went to bed and I went out on the balcony and watched the cars pass. I had a long talk with God. I went through all the emotions... sadness, anger, confusion and then by the end of course, I apologized. I forgot that He has a plan. And right now His plan is changing MY plan and it completely frustrated me. Even though I shouldn't I felt like he was scolding me.

"Do you think you know more than I? Do you think you can plan your life better than I can?"

And of course, I know that I cannot. How could I? Against the one who knows every hair on my head... every desire of my heart.

Again, I am in the position of letting him take the reins. Which is hard for me to do. I feel like my heart is changing and I'm kind of scared what that brings. I've always known that I wanted to be a wife. I've always known that I wanted to be a mother and maybe even a stay at home mother. I mourned for a while when I learned that none of those things may be in the cards for me. I might not ever get married or find 'the one'. I might never get to experience motherhood.. and that saddens me to the highest degree.

Such is life. I just have to learn that things will come when they are meant to. And not when I desire them to be so. I have to keep my head straight and do what I can.

Hmm... off subject... the window is open in Alison's living room and the neighbors are smoking and its wafting in here. SERIOUSLY? Does this follow me every where I go?

The neighbors to the left of us at home smoke on their back porch... our swamp cooler sucks it in and blows it right into our living room. Geez.

Moving on. Tomorrow, I make the trek back to Hanford. I'm excited to go home and see my bestie and my babies, Duey and Danny. I guess I should be going off to bed to get some rest.

Until the next time....

Reflection

Four years ago, I was seventeen years old; I was about to graduate high school. I remember that it was a warm day, but I was cuddled on the couch with my first love, Bryan. I have absolutely no recollection of what we were watching, because (usually) I have a really bad memory. But I remember this day because this was an important moment in my life. Around this day, the twenty-second of May, I asked Bryan to be my boyfriend. I told him that I was ready to give our relationship another shot. I wanted one more chance to give the relationship all that I had to give and to see where it went. Bryan accepted. He wanted another shot at us, too.

Roughly a month later, I was having a really hard time with life. I was living solely with my Dad, who was having major issues at the time. I didn't have a license, I was working full time at Mervyns to make ends meet, I had no relationship with my Mom. One sister was on the east coast, one sister was in southern California and my best friend had moved to Fresno. Oh, and my boyfriend lived three hours away. Most importantly, I had almost no relationship with God.

I was totally and completely alone. When I was younger, I had an ongoing fight with depression. Sometimes it consumed me. After graduation, I had no one, no hope and no faith. I was just a being. I fought hard to keep my head above water.

During this time, instead of going out and partying with the people that stayed in Hanford, I stayed home. I awoke every day that summer at 11:30. I had three Oreos and a glass of milk that I ate while watching the first 15 minutes of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' in whatever room that had a TV that my Dad was not passed out in. I took 15 minutes to shower, watched All My Children for an hour as I did my make-up and got dressed. At one, I did my hair. At one-fifteen, I would try to wake my Dad up. On the days that I succeeded, I drove him and myself to Mervyn's and told him to pick me up at eleven that night. If he didn't wake up, I took the truck and drove myself.

I would work from 2:00 to 11:00 every day. On the nights that I drove, I would cautiously drive myself home. On the nights that I told my dad to pick me up, 25% of the time he wouldn't show. One time, I walked home. Other times, I got a ride from a friend that would mercifully climb out of bed to come get me. Sometimes, I would get a ride from a friend at work. Once, I called my Mom. She dropped me off in tears. When he would be there, he would have already climbed out of the drivers’ seat into the passenger side; because he knew that I would not let him drive me.

I would go home, log on to the computer, surf the internet, listen to music and would be asleep by 2:00 every morning.

Amazing. To even type this. To even have lived that life. Fast forward four years and I am sitting in the cutest house ever, with my cat, Danny, curled up on my right side. I am sitting on my bed with a brand-new laptop that I am working as many hours as I can to pay off. I look up and I see my tiny flat screen TV that I bought with Christmas money. I see all the clothes that I have paid for. The furniture I have acquired. I know that outside the wall that I'm leaning against, my car, that I pay for every single month is sitting there, shining in the sun. I can bask in the fact that I don't have to return to my awesome accounting job for three days because of the Holiday on Monday. I know that I can walk into my backyard, play with my dog, and soak up the sun. I know that in 18 minutes, my best friend is going to be off work and on her way home so that we can hang out.

Not everything that I have done over the past four years has worked out. But just taking the time to remember what I've gone through, where I was, who I was and to appreciate where I am, who I have, what I have and who I am is like breathing fresh air. It’s like stepping out of your car after a long drive in the mountains and smelling the pine trees. Hearing the kids splashing in the lake. It’s like being transported into one of your favorite memories.

The past year of my life has passed so quickly, with so many changes. And now that it's starting to slow, God is pulling my heart to look back, to reflect, to remember. Even though some of it hurts, He is showing me that He delivered me. He answered all the prayers that I prayed. Maybe not in the way that I wanted or when I wanted but in the way that I needed and on His precious time.

God has created such a beautiful moment for me today.

I was dreading today. I was dreading it because both Bryan and I, a few months after we renewed our relationship, could NOT remember what day we did it on. So four years ago, I picked May 22. I picked the 22nd because 22 has always been my favorite number. And here it is. The 22 is today. Like I said, I was dreading it. I didn't want to remember all the 'good times' with Bryan. I didn't want to wonder what it would be like if we were still together today. I've prayed and asked God all week to be with me. To help it be a nice day to remember, not one that throws me off. I prayed and again, He was most faithful. He used today to remind me of His unending love. He reminded me that four years ago, I didn't have God in my life but I do now. He showed me the difference of living in this world without Him and living in this world in Him.

It is inspiring. His grace and His mercy astound me. Four years ago I was angry with God. Angry enough to turn away from him. Angry enough to scream and cry and doubt him. I was angry that my life had been such a train wreck. Everyone would say, "God knows the deepest desires of your heart and He is faithful." Then at the time, He knew that my deepest desire was to have my family back. To rewind and have a happy childhood filled with awesome memories and regular family problems. He knew how pained I was that I had missed out on my Mom and Dads best days, because once I arrived there were hardly any. He knew how I coveted my sisters’ memories of my Mom and Dad, happy and in love. I rarely got to see that. Both He and I remember how I would curse his name, how much I sinned, and still sin. And yet he cradles me and loves me like no one this earth ever can. He blesses me each and every day even though I don't deserve it.

What an awesome God.

Overcome...

Its poor form to post a blog like I did and not follow up within a few days but I've been busy. Frankly, I just haven't had much heart to post anything about my personal life.

I have slept! Thank God, because I am so grumpy when I don't sleep. I left work early on Friday because I kept nodding off. Denise was getting her car worked on and I had to drive her back to her work, but right after that I went home and got in bed. I couldn't fall asleep. As soon as I did, my sister, Kari, called. It would be my luck, but she wanted to offer me some bath time in her awesome huge tub and I was appreciative of the gesture. I tried falling back asleep after that and couldn't. I finally got myself up and went to pick Denise up from work and take her back to the shop to get her car.

I've been asked why I haven't been able to sleep and I have no clue. I don't know if it was an overactive mind, or that fact that I got in a fight with a friend that I care very much about (over something very minimal but hormones played into it) and I hate to think that is what made me sleepless because that means I care way, way more than I previously thought I did... which is a good and bad thing.

Luckily, I kept myself very, very busy for the rest of the day on Friday and ended up sleeping solidly from 11:30pm to 10:30am. Yay! Grumpy Megan was out and Happy Megan was in!

I had a pretty chill weekend, hanging out with friends and what not. Church was very good and one of the ladies that helps with the Children's Ministry asked if I could be an adult supervisor for the next three weeks in the classroom, so I agreed. I have that to look forward to this weekend!

Unluckily, my car has been acting up and I'm not happy about it one bit. I'm trying to keep my patience with Skeeter but I found myself yelling at her a couple of times. (Her name is Margaret, but her nickname is Skeeter and she is a VW New Beetle.)

Now, back to comment about the lack of blogging about my personal life.

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be an outlet for me. I'm shy... and if you know me, like really know me, you are probably thinking, there is NO way she is shy. For those of you are thinking this I must remind you that yes, in fact I am shy, just not around you! :)

For those of you that don't know me and have met me in person, please don't take my awkwardness and silence as "I'm too good to talk with you." It's more of "I'm super shy and am scared to let you know my goofiness cause you might just think I'm a crazy person."

Everyone has their fears and mine is rejection. (I can't believe I wrote that.) So, I keep people at bay until I can trust that they won't run for the hills when they see that I am human, that parts of me are weak and parts are strong...and parts are downright nerdy. Some mistake this as me being stuck up, but I assure you that I am not. I like people. I like talking to people. I like meeting new people.. I just have a hard time with making the first move.

Anyway, in my last relationship I opened up quite a bit and I blogged about my feelings, thoughts, and fears. I tried to be as open and honest as I could and it kinda sorta blew up in my face.

Needless to say, I've been scared to write about my relationships with other people (male or female) because I don't want the same thing to happen.

Then, a bunch of people start commenting about how honest I am in my blog and they love it... What topped it off was that I logged in to Facebook and had a message from someone I was never close with in high school who said things that seriously made me tear up. Her support about my honestly really helped me to WANT to blog again and to be open in my blog.

After praying about it another day, I really feel like this blog is important for me in this time of my life. I feel called to write about my life and if it helps just ONE person to understand they are not alone, it is worth it.

The floodgates have been opened and I am BACK!

I hope that you will stay with me as I try to wade through the waters that is my life.

Rants and...More Rants!

A lot is happening at such a fast pace.

I've wanted to write every night since last week, but I just haven't had the time or the energy. A few nights after my last post, my Mom called me. She told me that she had read it and that it had made her cry. She had been at work at the time. She couldn't believe what I had written. How fooled we all were.

I've been asked if I have heard from Michael at all. I haven't.

The part of my life that I have been really enjoying is being involved in the Young Republicans of Kings County organization. I've been helping the group with putting together the fund-raising letter and the fliers for an event we are hosting. Danny Gilmore is coming to Mary Queen Immaculate school in Lemoore on April 18 at 3 to talk to all who are interested about the water issues that the west valley is facing.

I'm so happy to be involved with a group of people that share the conservative values that I have. As time progresses our culture is sinking into quicksand. Our country is swimming in debt that even my great grandchildren will deal with. The government is out of control. Our people are swimming in their own debt, maybe because of the horrid example of a government we have. There are basically no family values anymore. Most parents don't give a crap about their childrens' education, development and health. It really breaks my heart.

I'm afraid that I feel that private industry can do pretty much anything better than the government. They are so inefficient. I also feel that we need to return to the roots of this country. When did we lose the ideal that our politicians are our employees? We VOTE them into office. WE give them their job. Yet they vote for their own raises? They are in office for years without any accomplishment and then can retire of 100% salary when there are state employees, like myself, that don't even have benefits? Its ludicrous. Honestly, it is.

Now, this week, two states - Iowa and Vermont - have voting to legalize gay marriage. Washington, DC has voted to acknowledge same-sex marriage performed in other states. This is so confusing and so disappointing for me.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate anyone. I have nothing against people that chose to live a life that involves a partnership with person of the same sex. I love them just the same as I love anyone else. I don't judge them. However, I do believe that it is a choice. I do believe that it is a sin. It is just as bad as any other sin. I'm no better than a homosexual just because instead of being in a relationship with a girl, I lie, cuss and have other temptations.

I think we all forget that each any every one of us has a purpose. God created Man and Woman. And even if you don't believe in God, we can all agree that there is only two sexes. Male and Female. There are many ways to tell the difference. When I explain this I like to use something that is basic and that we use all the time. Electricity. Please tell me when you have plugged in a female plug into another female plug and got any type of reaction. How about a male plug with another male plug? I have absentmindedly actually tried to plug to female parts together while doing Christmas trees. Guess what? Nothing happened. There was no purpose to do that. They were not made for each other. This is the same with same-sex marriages. A man was designed for a female. A female was designed for a male. And I mean this on more than just a reproductive level.

Obviously, I'm not for gay marriage. However, I do believe that if you have committed yourself to someone else you can opt to have a union that recognizes your commitment. That will be accepted by insurance companies. I can't tell someone that they can't commit themselves to another person and not be able to take care of them with insurance and other 'married' things. But I do believe we need to keep the two things separate. And unfortunately

Anyways, let me step off my soapbox. It saddens me where we are going. It saddens me that the family unit has been completely torn apart. It upsets me that people make excuses for absolutely everything. And honestly, I include myself in that.

More updates to come. I'm over at Kari and Adam's and we'll be watching American Idol for the next hour.

YAY!

A Happy Sunday...

Last night Denise, Mike and I went to the Laton Rodeo. It was so fun. Denise and I danced while Michael hung out with his friends. I really need to go dancing more often.

Today, I woke up early to go to church. It was 9:40 in the morning and Denise decides to wake up and wash her face right as I'm leaning over to put my eyeliner on. And a snip and her and say, "You know Denise? I have to leave soon and you decide to pick right NOW to get up and wash your face? Bad timing!" And she gives me this look like, I'm crazy. She says, "Megan, its like 9:30, we don't have to leave until 10:15. And I say, "No, I want to leave at ten because I want to get coffee. Wait, We? Are you going to church?" and shes like, "Uhh, YEAH. Why else would I be up right now?" I was like, "Oh. Okay. AWESOME!" I felt bad for a minute for that, haha. Usually she tells me when we're going to go.

My Mom bought me a new Bible, a really awesome King James Version that is a Woman's Study Bible. I was SO stoked! And she got my name inscribed in the cover. It says "Megan Lauriana" all pretty like. I love it. So church was especially awesome because I could actually follow along with Pastor Kenny. After church we rushed home so that I could bake some cornbread for a church homegroup that I was invited to. Denise came with me and it ended up being a really great experience. One that I am really excited for.

In even BETTER news, Denise is really finding her own way back to the Lord. You can read about it here. I'm so happy about it.

My life is starting to move so fast and I really feel that some life changing events are coming, which is really exciting!

Tuesday Musings

Strength.

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?

All throughout our lives we have faced times that called for strength. We have all had broken hearts, shattered dreams, fear for a loved one, failure, rejection. Each time we had to be strong, to breathe. To remember that the pain will fade.

When Bryan and I first ended, I thought I would die. The pain was overwhelming. It was a heavy burden that I could not carry. Parts during that time are fuzzy. I remember collapsing on my bathroom floor in the apartment because I couldn't take the pain. Because I had loved so strongly, so purely and so deeply that I couldn't breathe through the pain. I couldn't force myself to put on an unaffected front. I did, however, have the foresight to grab my phone and call Denise, and she calmly talked me down as only a good friend would.

I also remember going to Kari's house for dinner and my Mom was there. I remember we weren't even talking about Bryan or my relationship. All of a sudden a memory came back so strong that I just started crying. I went upstairs and hid in her curtains where I cried. Eventually, they found me. And do you know what they did? They came behind the curtains with me and let me cry.

I relied so much on my family and friends during that time that I don't think I would've ever recovered had I not had them. Honestly, I know I wouldn't have recovered so completely had I not had their love to help get me through.

Sometimes we forget just how important it is to have people to get us through when we feel we aren't strong enough. And when it is something personal, maybe we are fighting a demon no one knows about, it's important to remember that our battles are not to be fought by us. It's important to let Jesus take the wheel of our lives and let him steer us through anything that comes along and also to get us where we should be. It hard to let someone else in, to let them see ourselves as vulnerable. We won't allow our family and friends to be the rock that we need them to be out of pride.

It's really hard for me to let go of that control. It's really hard to be hurting and not shove it down so that I don't have to feel it or deal with it.

I really hope that if there is anything going on in your life that hurts or something that you are not strong enough to bear, that you aren't burying it or masking it with alcohol, drugs, or sex. I hope that you deal with it.


Carrying pain and heartache inside of you forever changes you. I carried around pain and felt that I wasn't worth to have someone love me like I should have been loved. I stayed in a relationship for three years that I never should have been in because I felt like I wasn't strong enough to make it outside of it. I let myself love without guarding my heart and it blew up in my face. I have learned now to be more honest with myself because of it.

I think everyone needs to be a little bit more honest with themselves.

I really don't know the point of this blog. Maybe its for those who are hurting and need to remember that saying that you aren't strong enough doesn't mean you are saying you are weak. Maybe it's saying that if you have someone in your life that you care about, you should let them know. Maybe it's for the person that needs to open up to one of their core people. I don't know.

What I do know is that I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.