In my fantasy, we eat steamed vegetables every day. A bountiful green salad with radishes and shredded carrots and purple cabbage appears at every meal . . . and we eat together in the dining room as a family. At a beautifully set table topped by a tablecloth and the good dishes. We have interesting conversations and no one leans forward with their elbows on the table and eats like a caveman.
In my fantasy, the floors are free of dust and popcorn kernels and regurgitated hairballs. The laundry has been folded and put into drawers and closets and every sock has a match. Sunlight streams through unsmudged windows.
In my fantasy, I walk five miles a day and fit into the clothes that are stored in a gigantic bin on my closet floor right now. My hair is neither too short or too long or too frizzy or crazy and for once, doesn’t make me scream when I look in the mirror. In fact, the mirror is my friend and I like what I see instead of wondering when I became old and puffy.
In my fantasy, my children are enthralled by novels, not video games. They never leave cups under their beds after drinking the last of the milk. They don’t put empty milk cartons back in the fridge. They all get straight A’s. The children laugh and sing and frolic and never, ever, ever raise their voices or engage in the enraged arguments over nothing that cause parental embolisms.
In my fantasy, I manage to get to bed early, even though I work until midnight. I wake up with the sun because who needs sleep? Not me or Martha Stewart! In my fantasy, I bake bread from scratch and grow my own zucchini and have a coupon for everything I buy at the grocery store. I throw parties for my many friends and baby showers for new mothers and watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean every night.
In my fantasy, I have plenty of time to write, plenty of time to spend with my husband, plenty of time to volunteer in my church, plenty of time to spend with each of my children, plenty of time to read my Bible and pray, plenty of time to sew and plenty of time to serve the disenfranchised. I read a novel every week. I plan a trip to Haiti where I will solve the humanitarian crisis made worse by the earthquake and then skidaddle over to Alabama and help rebuild homes.
In my fantasy, when we move to California in seven weeks, I will be new and improved and everything that I am not now and never have been but have always wanted to be.
Or not.
The first step in overcoming a problem is realizing that you have one. And I realize that I have an overactive fantasy life. Send help.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
Seven weeks? Wow.
I always thought it would be great fun to start a ‘Fantasy Island’ blog where I could blog about what I wish I were doing each day.
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I’m with Judy…7 weeks?! How did that happen?? LOL! Just thinking about your move brings back memories that make me break out in hives. Oh, how I am SO THANKFUL our trek across the country is now nothing more than a memory. And yours will be over and nothing more than a memory soon, too. I have been here two months already, Mel…can you believe it? I don’t have a fantasy world in my head. I’m just thankful to be able to begin setting new roots down here and go with the flow like I always have. I hope you love California as much as I love Michigan. How could I hate it, with Judy only a couple hours away on “the other side of the mitten”? See…I’m even beginning to TALK like a Michigander, haha! And I got my little truck registered and A Michigan license plate…they only issue one here…today so I don’t have my Oregon plates blaring to the world I’m a ‘foreigner’ any more.
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Just be you! They will love you. (Although I have similar fantasies, so I get it. Part of mine is that I would post wildly interesting and informative articles on my blog on a daily basis and have a huge following and affiliate links that would enable me to not have to work outside my home. I will also have published several ebooks that will have gone viral.) Seven weeks???? I remember when you were just barely, tentatively, starting to write about this and it seemed like a lifetime away! Exciting stuff! We just moved too…but only a bit farther down the peninsula. We moved our church/pioneering a new church about 20 minutes south of SF, so we’re still in the Bay Area. Anyway, just be you. No fantasy needed to be a great person to know.
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Wow, your fantasy life sounds remarkably like mine, except the moving to California part.
Doesn’t the closer it gets, the faster time seems to be moving?
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Hey, I think we have the same fantasy life. Except I already moved from the NorthWest to California. 🙂
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That just made me smile from ear-to-ear. I like your fantasy life, but I think mine’s better…
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oh what fun fantasys you have…mine right now is getting over a cold!!! ha ha….
we all have idea’s on how life should be…just keep living the dreams!
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I didn’t even realize how much I fantasize about that “other” life. You know, the one I *will* lead when I really get everything together. My fantasy includes perfectly manicured gardens and skips the sewing, but otherwise, very very similar.
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That’s my fantasy dinner! Steamed veggies & the salad exactly as you described it (just add sweet onions). YUM! :-p
It’s nice to know that even when you move away~ We’ll still all be able to keep up with you 🙂
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I think I use every transition as a kick in the rear to be more of the version of me I’d like to be. sometimes it’s good. Sometimes I come face to face with how unrealistic my expectations are, and that is good too, but I don’t like it.
That said, I shall put the laptop down and go clear the table, where we all sat down with a tablecloth and ate dinner together. (We do that on Fridays) Problem is, I still have to clean up after wards. In my fantasy world the table magically clears itself and the leftovers trot into perfect sized containers with matching lids and into the fridge while I catch up on blogs. Yeah….
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LOVE this post.
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