You know I'm a dreamer...

Said Motley Crue from their song "Home Sweet Home".  

I have repeatedly encouraged you to follow your dreams in many of my posts.  And I do believe that.  But there is a difference between following your dreams and being "a dreamer".  I like to think of myself as one of those dreamers - you know the romanticized version of the dreamer who has great ideas and lives with her head in the sky.

But in reality, I'm not much of a dreamer.  I'm way too practical for that.  Which may be why I find myself.having succeeded in my weight loss journey.

You see, there are problems with being a dreamer.  The first is that dreamers rarely get things done.  They are so caught up in thinking of what could be that they don't put in the effort to get there.  They fantasize about the future but don't have the get up and go to make things happen.

I don't know all that much about Steve Jobs, but I have read enough about him to know that he was a dreamer.  And he probably would have gone through his life without having created Apple or having revolutionized the industry if he had never met Steve Wozniak or someone like him.  Because "The Woz" was the practical guy who put everything into motion.  Jobs had the ideas, but they were dreams and, like most dreamers, he lacked the tolerance for putting ideas into reality.  

Especially since you can dream about something happening tomorrow, but dreams often take months and years to become reality.  If you don't have the patience for this, you will fail.

Here's the other thing about dreams - I see people all the time talking about what their life is going to be like once they lose weight.  They talk about wearing a bikini and getting dates with hot guys and flaunting their new hot bodies to their ex-best friend.

Well guess what?  The fantasy in your head rarely lives up to reality.  Don't get me wrong, being thin having lived most of my life as morbidly obese - well there is no words to describe how marvelous that is!!  However, my fantasy of being thin did not involve stretch marks and hanging skin.  Losing weight didn't suddenly solve life's problems.  It didn't make stress go away.  It hasn't made every day a skip and a hop through a meadow of flowers!!

I still have work stress, Marc and I still fight, I still go to stores and try on clothes that look terrible on me.  I didn't become magically beautiful when I lost the weight.  It didn't fix every relationship issue with friends and family in my life.  

So when you're on this journey, remember to follow your dreams.  But don't get so caught up in thinking of what COULD, SHOULD, MIGHT be!  Instead focus on doing the work and the rest will come!!

Finally, I can't let today pass without at least mentioning my Dad.  He has been gone 23 - holy crap can it really be 23 years? - as of today.  I wish you were still here, Dad...