Mindful Living

As a young girl I wanted to be a veterinarian, then a singer, but by high school I was stumped. Career testing was somewhat helpful, but I didn't really understand it or what it meant for me. And most importantly, I didn't have good female role models who had careers they enjoyed. I see dreams change for my children as they get older, and I think that it is a "maturing", but it makes me feel a little sad also. My oldest wanted to be a model and moved to NYC partly for the reason, but it hasn't developed as he would have liked and is now going to go back to college. My other son loves sports- and had dreams of playing professionally (whether realistic or not), but those dreams are now gone for him, and he is looking into technical school programs. I am sure this is the natural process of coming to grips with our limitations and our strengths, but I can see the disappointment in them at times and it hurts. Can these other paths they take be really good for them? Abs...

It seems that this time of year brings out a lot of different feelings for so many of us. Excitement, apathy, worry, love, inpatience, etc. One thing I find that many of us experience is that we have high expectations of what the holiday season will be- the family connections, gifts, meals, church, and then many of our expectations are not met, and we feel disappointed. If we had great holidays growing up, we try to recreate them as adults, and if we didn't have great holidays growing up, we want to have them now! Growing up a in large family, we had a lot of food, presents and company on the holidays. It was a fun and magical time. Then, when my own family moved out of state and I had to create holiday atmosphere, it definitely wasn't what I had experienced as a child and I remember feeling so dissapointed! I felt bad that my children wouldn't have the same type of holidays that I had as a child. So, we "checked out" of Christmas for a few years (going to F...