Have you had a dream, a desire or an urgent longing to realize and reach that one only so far imagined objective in your life? The one thing that you aspire to be or accomplish in your life that has driven you to strive and struggle toward for the better part of your existence, or perhaps you achieved it earlier in your time and have been living the fulfilling of that aspiration for some time.
If you have already reached your life’s goal, then you are or should be happy and contented. So many of us begin our adult life, after all the education is behind us, reaching for that one goal that we have been to school to learn and acquire the skills for that we will need to fulfill this fancy.
When I was in high school, I dreamed of being an attorney and was signed up for “college preparatory” classes, meaning I was studying the classes I would need to get into a senior college and then into law school. I began this route in my freshman year and prepared myself for the next four years of education. Then, I met my husband-to-be in my junior year of high school and all ambition of being a barrister flew right out the door of my “lovestruck” mind.
I fell in love and married at the beginning of my senior year and have been happily married since. It took me several years to realize that my life’s ambition, God’s intention, for me was to be a wife, office administrator, and, most of all, a mama. I have never regretted my, and God’s, decision.
All this brings me to the young people of today’s world, especially my grandchildren. I have eight boys who are at the age of “choosing” their life’s ambition. Two are in college and I hope they are following their desire and will use their higher education to make it happen. I have three finished with college, one choosing music and education, one choosing a field of sports training and applications, and the other a diesel mechanic. They are all now experiencing employment in retail grocery, not in the least using their chosen professions from their college degrees, but they are happy and contented for right now anyway.
Then I have two more in college, and I wait to see if they pursue their dream or detour at the end of learning. The other two are already in the workforce, one working in a shipping warehouse and pleased with all the quirks, and the other one is learning to run our farm and ranch of Black Angus and he, too, seems to be content for now.
Sometimes between the times of having to choose a course of study and real life, our desires change or maybe our needs change.
Circumstances alter circumstances and sometimes, occasionally, the dreams we have when we are so young just must be altered.
We never ate raw squash when I was growing up, but I have learned that it can be quite flavorful. Here’s my recipe for Squash Salad:
2 yellow squash/2 zucchinis, sliced thin;
1 bunch of chopped chives
1 chopped bunch of green onions
Small handful of basil, chopped
½ cup of Parmesan cheese
¼ cup of olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper.
Mix all well and can store leftovers in the fridge for three days. It gets even better as leftovers.
