The Imagination of a Dreamer

It can be said of every single person that walks the Earth, you either are or are not a particular type of person. The lists of things you could or could not be are endless. I want to take a moment today to focus on just a little part of myself. I have a wildly active and vivid imagination. I always have and hope I always will. Although as I have grown from my childhood I don't imagine things like monsters under my bed or aliens outside my window coming to abduct me. Yes there was a time when I would lay terrified in my bed convinced little men with large glowing green heads would undoubtedly get into my bedroom and suck me up into their ship to do God knows what to me. Only to spit me back out and have no one believe me, then I would end up on the show Unsolved Mysteries, which is where I got the idea in the first place.

As an adult I still have a very active imagination. Sometimes I think people view this as a negative or childish thing. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I am a dreamer too. I know you might be thinking that's repetitive but it's not because a dream can actually happen it might start in the imagination but it can come to fruition. I know this because I have lived a couple of them out already and I intend on living out a few more at the very least.

All this to say last night I started to imagine what our daughter's first trip to Disney World might be like. I didn't cap off the image with a dollar sign as I perused the Disney site and signed up for my vacation planning tool kit. To me the possibilities are endless. So I grabbed my notebook where I write down things that need further thought and made a list of all the things I would love for Lilia to experience while she spends time in Disney World with her parents and if it works out maybe a few friends as well. I was finishing this up as Paul came to bed.

I sat cross legged like a child with my pad and pen, nearly bouncing as I told him of all of my wonderful discoveries. A tea party, a princess makeover, dinner in the castle, tours, restaurants we haven't tried yet in Disney, maybe a family photo shoot with an actual photographer... you get the idea. His face was not one of a happy man. His response was how will I ever afford all of that. So now you see Paul is not the dreamer and imagine-er that I am. I absolutely refused to give into dollar sign mentality. I gave a grand speech. "I am a very practical person. I do things myself to pinch pennies. I do not spend exorbitant amounts of money on things that many parents do. Nor will I ever want or suggest that we should over spend on things that are typical or can be done on our own. However when we take Lilia to Disney I do not plan on being practical. I plan on pulling out all the stops and giving her the best vacation leading to some pretty spectacular memories. So please Paul leave me that, I don't ask for much."

That didn't work either, so after an hour of trying to convince him that if possible every young girl needs to dress like a princess just once and eat in a castle I made a little progress. It took comparing it to my niece opening a gift of princess dolls to make him finally understand that even a tom boy might want to be girly for a day. (He is certian that Lilia will be a tom boy and hate all things girl like. His reason is because yours truly is not overly girly. I even professed that if when I was 5 it was an option in Disney to dress like a princess and eat in the castle I would have begged for it.)

So all this to say I am glad that I rarely allow dollar signs to get in the way of my imagination. Dreams sometimes take some dollar signs to make them happen. Yet when it is nothing more than thoughts in your head it doesn't matter. I have time, nearly four years to win Paul over to my crazy Disney vacation idea. In the mean time I will start planning a typical trip with upgrade options. Something that will make us both happy.

Paul, my love, if you are reading this, there is a part of me that is so very sad for you, because you seem to not have this capability. You however married a dreamer with a wild imagination, so I guess you might want to try to just for a moment let loose and imagine something because I don't want to imagine and dream all on my own.

I am grateful for this gift of imagination and dreams.