Childhood Dreams and Letting Go

Since we are so close to another weekend I thought that I should share two noteworthy happenings of my past weekend.  One of them was a childhood dream come true (well, sort of, but more on that later.)  The other was something that I had hoped wouldn't happen for a long time to come, my realist side would always tell me that it would happen, but hey, you can always hope right?  Let's start with the sort-of-fulfilled-childhood-dream.

When I was young I loved to read (still do, but in a different way).  I loved all of the different worlds I could enter.  I would come away from many books wanting to bring a certain part of that book to my world and experience for myself what the characters of the book had experienced.  Somehow I would get a picture in my mind that these things were "romantic," not in the lovey-dovey definition of the word, but more in a rosy, vintage way.  Two things that really stick out to me that I really wanted to do for the longest time were apple-picking and ice-skating.  I've tried to remember what books I could have read that would put the ideas that these things were "romantic".  I can't.  But, somehow, somewhere, the idea entered my mind.  This Fall I was able to go apple-picking and therefore fulfill one childhood dream.  It wasn't "romantic," "rosy", or "vintagey," but it was a lot of fun!  So as you've probably picked up on, this left me with the childhood dream of ice-skating to fulfill sometime in the future.  Well, on Saturday I went ice-skating....Sort of....If you can call what I did ice-skating.  My analogy loving mind is trying to come up with some sort of a mental picture for you...But I am not having much success.  The closest I can get is to tell you to imagine the clumsiest person you can, then imagine that person blindfolded and very, very tipsy....On skates.....On ice.  I had known that I wouldn't be a good ice skater.  I didn't know how bad that meant I'd be. I fell.  A lot.  If that ice-skating rink would have been a pond or a lake with a weak spot a lot of people would have been drowned.  Some of my very kind and patient friends attempted to help me stay standing but it just wasn't working.  After a while of falling every 5 (or at least what seemed like 5) steps I decided to sit out and watch for awhile.  Note: if you have to sit out of ice-skating and you are watching the people on the ice DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, set your focus on the 5 year old little girl out there who is an amazing skater.  It could quite possibly shatter your confidence.  Anyways, after watching for awhile I decided that I should get back out there and try again.  Thanks to one very special friend who put up with my incredible slowness, I made it around the rink three times without falling.  I think I found out that I can't talk and skate at the same time (one of the only things I've ever found that I can't talk and do at the same time.)  I also discovered that ice-skating is a lot like life.  You fall down, you get up, you fall down, you get up, and you get the picture.  So, I now have another childhood dream fulfilled, and another career crossed off of my dwindling list.  But I would totally do it again!

The sad thing that happened on Saturday was that I lost my sunglasses.  I got them when I moved here in September, and I loved them.  They were the pair of sunglasses I swore I'd never have because they were big.  I went through a time period in my life where I didn't like big sunglasses.  Matter of fact I despised them.  But then that all changed.  I decided that the next pair of sunglasses I purchased would be big.  And they were.  And I loved them.  They actually lived longer than most of my sunglasses typically do.  Usually I get a pair and lose them in about a month.  But not these ones, that was how I knew they were special.  They didn't get lost when I went flew to CO in Nov, they didn't get lost in all of the vehicle changing I did while in CO, they didn't get lost on the way back, they didn't get lost on the way to and from OK in Dec, and they didn't break or get lost when I fell with them on the ice.  But I go to the grocery store, take them off to try on some reading glasses and leave them in the basket when I leave the store.  By the time I got to my car, realized that I had left them, and got back to check the basket they were gone.  I was crushed.  I feel like I let them down.  I have finally come to grips with the fact that they are gone and I have to let them go.  But it's not easy.  And the thought of buying a new pair crushes my soul...Like a grape (for all you Tangled lovers out there;)