Also visit my Photography by DonnaKay blog @
http://blog.photographybydonnakay.com
... a little more about my life as a photographer...
Too often in life I find that people think dreams are only for the youth. Children, teenagers, even those who are graduating college but still in their early-20's... to them we will say "follow your dreams." But for some strange reasoning, we no longer think that when someone gets into their 30's and beyond. Seems that the thought is that they have had their chance, and now it's time to start taking life more seriously. Stand up to their responsibility in life. As a child, my dream was to grow up and be a Mommy. Anyone that would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up would hear the same response "a Mommy." (well, I also wanted to be a go-go dancer, but I realized early on that it just wasn't going to happen for me!) I can say that my dreams did come true - and I was a Mom for the first time when I was 21...my second child was born when I was 23 and my third child when I was 24. And then I was going through a divorce by the time I was 25. Sometimes dreams just don't happen the way we actually dream them! So it was time for lots of reality and extreme responsibility. But fear not, I was up for the challenge, and along that road of parenthood were many laughs, tears, surprise turns and cliffs (which occasionally I either fell off or dove from!) It was never boring, and although my dream-come-true sometimes left me quite exhausted, it never left me regretful. Now let's turn time ahead 20 years....
I'm now 45 (and can you believe, I'll be 46 in 3 short weeks?!) and the kids are all grown. I've been with my husband (and father of my kids, as he adopted them and is the only father they've ever known) for over 15 years. There have been many rocky times along the way, but also many triumphs. I can definitely look back and see the many times that there was only one set of footprints in the sand, as God carried me through. Yet getting to this point - the place where my dream of having children and raising them - is basically done... and the realization has been that I needed a new dream. I needed to look back into my heart and find that passion and zest that would fuel me from here. Coming to that place of feeling unneeded much of the time is a tough place to find yourself, but it's a choice as to whether I would stay there or move on to making another dream a reality. 2011 has been a year of realized dreams... it started that way, and I am coming to the end of it in that same way. This year I have started living more of my dreams... almost as if I opened up my little box of dreams and started letting them out one-by-one. First was to start my photography business... to take something I have loved so much, have worked on and pursued, and actually make it an even bigger part of my life. There has often been anxiety and frustration along the way, and while I still have so much to learn about running my own business, amazingly I have been doing it! Little by little I have watched clients trickle in, and trusting that as time goes by there will be more and my business will get stronger and larger. This weekend I started on another dream: a guitar. It's been something I've wanted to learn for so long, and now is the time of living with no excuses. If it's a dream that is worth going after, then I will go after it.
What do you do with your dreams? Sometimes our dreams may be ridiculous. Wanting to own the world, be the richest person in the world, live in the largest house... those things are silly and don't bring happiness or joy. But those dreams of accomplishment, of making people smile, of helping someone and giving to another persons life, of learning and maybe teaching... those are dreams that can change the world. They are the dreams we should strive to make true.
