Partners In Dreaming
There are a couple of significant factors in our success. One is consistency, which I know I have hammered (and will continue to hammer). Another is a partner. It's always just ourselves that bears the responsibility for our dreams, but that doesn't mean we have to do it alone. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but one of the biggest factors to our success will be the support we find along the way.
I know a lot of us want to do it on our own. We want to bear the entire weight of our victory and sacrifice because that's how we earn it. But believe me, we can bear the brunt of that without suffocating our ability to achieve. Trying to carry the load singlehandedly will only burn us out, especially when we have someone sitting next to us offering to help carry it.
This can be confusing to think about, though, because the reality is that the work of our dream is work we have to do. No one else can write these posts for me. No one can send these inquiries on my behalf. No one can replace me showing up and fighting through the struggle to put in the work. We can one day bring someone skilled in to help with these things, but ultimately no one can replace our voice in our dreams. If they do, then maybe it wasn't really our dream.
Here's where we can find support: in every other area of our lives. It starts with being willing to accept help. We have to say yes when someone offers. We have to search out for the people who can help. We have to demand support from people who should be giving it.
Tonight, this support looks like my husband unloading everything from our cars, getting our son ready for bed (aside from his bedtime milk because that's my time with him), and setting everything up so we can go to bed because I need to write. We just got to our new house a few hours ago, and there's a lot to do before the movers come in the morning. There wasn't complaining. I didn't have to ask him to handle these things. I just said, "I'm going to go write now if that's ok?" And He said, "Yeah, I figured that was the plan."
The other piece of this is that if I didn't take the time to write, he would ask me why and push me to get back to it. He would tell me he's got everything handled and that I needed to work on my dream. I do the same for him. We split the load of our lives so that we can both be free to chase our dreams.
At our last base, this looked like watching our son four days a week, and then my husband would take him to work one day to give me some time. That may not be possible at this new base, but my husband is not scared to try. It looked like me cooking dinner while he fed our son and cleaned up. It looked like taking a weekend to clean the house after we both let it get far too dirty. It looks like him asking me to hand some tasks off rather than inherently taking everything on myself.
We also find ways to make it feel similar when he's gone. I haven't balanced chasing a dream and parenting through a deployment. I'm sure that's coming soon, though, and we'll figure out how to get through it together. I have done it through longer TDYs, though. Helping carry the burden when he's gone looks like checking in and encouraging me. It looks like creating space for me to vent. It looks like making sure we have room in the budget for me to go home if I need the support, go with him if it's practical (sometimes it is), or be able to hire the help I need. It looks like making it up to me when he gets home, which looks different every time depending on what I need.
I hope you have this with your partner. And if you don't, I hope there is space in the relationship for a frank conversation about where they need to step up more. And I hope that conversation is followed by firm boundaries and a partner doing more. However, we don't have to find this support in our romantic partners. It's great to have it across all areas of life, but we can take it and grow it wherever we find it.
Maybe this looks like teaming up with another parent and swapping childcare or investing in a caregiver together to lower the cost. Maybe it looks like getting a part-time job at Whole Foods to get 30% off groceries, including their sales-priced items, to make room to buy more freezer meals and save your sanity (my friend just got a part-time job there, which is why I know this, and they were super flexible with working around her husband's scheduled so they could be off together and make sure someone was always home to watch their daughter). Maybe it looks like joining a weekly group of people chasing the same dream as you. I'm on the lookout for a writer's group for another level of accountability and community.
It's our responsibility to achieve our dreams. We have to do the dream-specific work. But we still have to live life in a world that usually demands a lot from us. If we try to carry everything, we can burn ourselves out, and often, the first thing to go out the door is our dream. It won't stick around if we can't give it attention, and many times, we push it out because it was the most recent addition that tipped the stress scales overboard. Search for this support, and remember it goes both ways. Everything my husband does for my dream is quickly returned for his. It may not be perfect, especially when we don't quite understand our partner's dream in the same way, but we can always keep showing up to lighten the load. The world will always be a little better when someone is watching a dream come true, and I want to do anything I can to be a part of that.