Sunday, May 14, 2017

The Dreams of Youth are the Regrets of Maturity

Happy Mother’s day! I hope this blog post finds you happy and well!

Warning…I am going to get a little existential here.

I find myself in a state of constant reflection here in Baja. The shock and trauma of the car accident we were in is fading, and in its place something is growing within. Inner strength and renewed awe for life.


I came here in February searching for something. I thought that I was running away, and maybe I was, but I was also searching for myself. Over the past five years I have become a whisper of the person that I was before having kids and something needed to change.

I chose to leave Orange County for a spell, which got me on my way; but the most clarity of all has come now, after the accident. My life and the lives of my beautiful kids flashed before me. That day, when we were flying through the air, I accepted that we were going to die. Then the truck landed on its tires, the dust settled and I rushed to safeguard my children. We were okay!

I think some sort of quantum leap occurred. I am now living in an alternate reality with new perspective.


My kids have been talking about what they want to be when they grow up. My daughter wants to be a musician and a performer and my son wants to be a firefighter, pila truck driver, and a fisherman. There is no question in their minds that they will become what they want to be.


I had a dream the other night about mediocrity. In this dream, we were in Thailand; I was with the kids, my husband, a friend, and some random people. We were getting foot massages on the street, when all of the sudden a grave sense of mediocrity over took me. I saw my own mediocrity and felt like everyone else did too. It was awful.  

I awoke from the dream feeling disturbed. It really got me considering how I look at myself.


Since I’ve had my kids, I have felt an overwhelming sense of social anxiety overtake me. I have an inner battle where I fear that people don’t like me. Why do I feel that way? Why do I care or worry about it? I have wonderful friends, so what’s going on inside of me, where I worry so much about what others perceive? Well, the dream, was my answer. My anxiety really isn’t about other people…It’s about me. It’s about how I see myself.

There is something about the decade of life between fifteen and twenty-five years old. It’s an infectious time where limits and boundaries are nearly non-existent. You basically don’t give a fuck. At least that was my experience.  It’s a time for dreams, aspirations, and adventure. It’s a magical time in life. So enchanting, that pop culture is obsessed with it. That is especially true for women, youth is admired.


Life is so new and fresh at this time in our lives. We haven’t yet allowed experience to darken our hope and we pretend that our invisible emotional baggage isn’t there. That catches up to us later.

I knew who I wanted to be when I was fifteen. I wanted to be a journalist for National Geographic (so that I could travel every corner of the world) and even more clearly, I saw myself writing fiction novels. Then life happened.

I am thirty-six years old and have lived an amazing life full of adventure, excitement, sadness, joy, education, travel, beauty, friendship, love, and triumph. The thing is, I found myself just sort of rolling along with things, making small goals and enjoying the adventure. I forgot all about those youth filled dreams that seemed simple to attain. Back then, I had a, "I'm just going to do it," outlook. At some point, instead of seeing the future as limitless and my goals and aspirations as reachable. I began to see myself as mediocre, because I never gave myself the chance to really live up to my dreams and be the person, fifteen-year-old me, had imagined I would someday become.


Well, as we get older, we begin to accept that life is a what it is and that we need to grow up instead of chase our dream. As mother’s we often lose who we are as we take on the role of caring for others. These two things make it easy to forget our original ambitions; we forget what once drove and inspired us when we were young. We allow ourselves to accept our plight, to blame others and to make excuses for why we haven’t achieved that silly naive visualization of our youth.


For the last two years, I have prayed/visualized a life where I would travel the world with my family and teach, revel, and connect in the beauty of cultural differences. For some reason, I thought that I would have to wait until my kids were older and I was making more money. But last March, because I had always dreamed of doing it, I decided to begin writing a book. It set in motion something bigger than I can even understand. Things got so overwhelming in Orange County that I leapt across the Mexican border looking for salvation. The wild thing is, I had been mentally abstracting change with my thoughts and prayers every day. Ask and it is given! What did I expect would happen?

At some point I started thinking that my own reflections of mediocrity were more powerful than the limitless dreams of my youth. It's time for a reset.


I think it's time to drop settling for mediocrity. The time is now. Someplace between being a wife, a daughter and a mom; I intend to finally find the person I had hoped to become outside of those things that are me, but aren't a full representation of who I want to become.



*** I am still collecting used car seats for San Juanico and will be starting a gofundme to raise money to supplement with inexpensive new seats. More to come on this front!

*** The fiestas continue to be off the hook in this little town!

Hasta entonces, mas tarde

~Sarah

2 comments:

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  2. Wao! You have beautifully spent you holiday. the places from where you shared your pictures are so awesome. I am loving your picture in which you have flowers around you. Keep sharing your good experiences with us.

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