Dreams Before and After Children

When I was single, I had dreams of changing the world. I had many opportunities to do so, although I did them somewhat effortlessly.  I didn't have the fearless motivation observed by many who make big waves and provoke world changing results.  I fell into opportunities, and I did my job.

I worked with teen moms and helped one in particular through some difficult moments. I worked with incarcerated teenagers who openly laughed at the system's efforts to help them, and I continued to do my best at understanding them and giving them hope.  I worked with a pre-teen drug prevention program and witnessed one young man dispose of his drugs in the creek running through town.

I wanted to make the world a better place.

I provided play therapy to homeless children and abused children. I supervised state and national hotlines whose sole purpose was to reach out to those in crisis and provide them with a solid grounding that could help them move through and move on. I worked in a residential treatment center for children who had been removed from their homes. In a fit of anger, one of the boys once pulled my hair so hard I saw stars.  We had to learn how to passively restrain our children so that we could control them when they were unable to control themselves.  I worked with runaways on a national hotline and my first call was a suicide call. It doesn't matter that it was a prank, your first call is your first call.

I wanted to change the world.

I recently came across a retreat coming up in December by a rabbi whose retreats I have attended in the past.  I have read Rabbi David Cooper's books and they have had long lasting impact on my life. 

As I thought about seeing him again after all these years, I envisioned him asking me how life was. (He probably won't really do so because it's a silent retreat. And, the first retreat I attended with him and his wife, Shoshana, was a silent Passover retreat). 

Nonetheless, my daydream caused me to think about how I might answer that question. How does someone with the plans that I had and the eagerness that I felt and the confidence that I would do it - how does someone answer the question of "how's life"?  What have I done in the decade (+) that has passed since that last retreat?

Well, I suppose I haven't changed the world in quite the way I intended.  And, I still dream of ending poverty, curing cancer, and preventing child abuse, but I'm not doing much about it.  But, I have changed the world with the addition of my four children - each of whom brings great gifts to this world. 

I work - and work is not even a worthy word to describe what it really is - to make a Shalom Bayit - a peaceful house for my children.  And when I say work - I mean internally.  The external stuff we do?  Well, that's 'easy' compared to the internal stuff we do. 

I spend my thinking moments contemplating how I can be better, what I can do differently, and what I must to accomplish for my children.  Countless hours go into planning and thinking about what I'm teaching them, what I'm modeling for them, and what things they need that will come from outside of our home.

My angst in life revolves around my children - whether I'm doing enough, where I'm slacking, where they are lacking. I worry if I'm building a strong enough foundation.  I worry if I'm letting them experience their own experiences, make their own mistakes, and explore their own paths.  I worry if I've exposed them to enough choices, if I've nudged them adequately, and if I'm teaching them too many bad words.

When I - G*d willing - see Rabbi Cooper in December for the retreat, will I yearn for my dreams of earlier years? Will I feel a twinge because I haven't pursued them?  Or will I be able to come into retreat a different person than I was back then.  A person ready for new insight and enlightenment. A person whose answers will be different now than they were then. 

What dreams remain within me?  What dreams will I pursue?  The biggest dream of all - the one to be a mother - that one has been fulfilled.