Who gets custody of the dreams?

A person can create a lot of dreams in 16 years and if you get a couple that has similar interests and sensibilities, I think the number of dreams you can dream is exponentially more. When I first met my husband, I was up for adventure, I just didn’t really know how to dream big anymore. I think trauma at 19 took the ability to dream big right out of me, but I digress, that’s another story for another day.

Over the last 16 years, I did learn to dream big again thanks entirely to my soon-to-be-ex-husband. The girl that refused to scale the ladder for the high dive has climbed Taylors Falls, Barn Bluff, and countless indoor routes. I’ve fallen, I’ve gotten scraped, I’ve twisted body parts that the good Lord never intended me to twist…and I’ve loved every second of it. I’ve parasailed (refer back to the high dive comment) and I’m not ashamed to admit that I tried to talk the 8 year-old-boy in our tour group that was a little tentative into letting me go up again in his place (ok, maybe I’m a little ashamed of that, but it didn’t work anyway, he went up and had a ball). I’ve also jumped into camping with both feet with my inaugural camping experience being nine (count them, 9) days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (yes, my husband planned the trip, and no, that’s not when things started to go South in our marriage). Believe me, you don’t know what personal empowerment is until you’ve built your own latrine. While I’m on the subject of camping, I’ve also winter camped, and you really don’t know what personal empowerment is until you’ve built your own latrine in -10 weather. Not bad for a girl that doesn’t come from a camping people. I may not be able to make fire by rubbing two sticks together but I have learned that I have a knack for finding even the most camouflaged portages and I can haul a food heavy Duluth Pack with the best of them.

But now I find myself in a quandary. There was one dream we had together that we didn’t pursue, we were going to go kayaking with killer whales. We’re working through dividing assets, building a parenting plan that works best for our 11-year-old son, and figuring out who gets the ashes of the two dogs we’ve lost in the last year, but who gets custody of the unrealized dreams? Is this an adventure I can strike out on, on my own? I’m really not sure. Part of the dream was to have a once-in-a-lifetime adventure together. I guess what I’m realizing as I think about making plans for this adventure solo is that it’s not the same dream if he’s not along for the ride. That’s not bad, but it is a little sad to me. I will always be grateful to him for giving me back my ability to dream by simply having dreams himself that he pulled me into. Maybe we can split custody of the dreams…