“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I had three days this past week where both of my kids were at school/daycare. Do you know what I did? Nothing. Well, not nothing exactly.

I allowed myself to believe that we could start to find a regular routine for school and work.

I relaxed that core part of my body that has been holding me upright for 18 months as I’ve been afraid that if I didn’t stand tall my little family would crumble.

I breathed in to the space created by being able to give up the jobs of teacher, school janitor, lunch lady, PE coach, and school social coordinator for a 6-year-old.

I dared to dream that I might have some energy left for me to grow as we return to more normal days.

Like famed psychiatrist and author Dr. Scott Peck answered when asked how he gets so much done – “it’s because I spend two hours a day doing nothing.” I suspect doing nothing looks different for every person – meditating, reading, praying, playing but out of it comes a renewed spirit.

I think of all the hard times I’ve gone through – divorce, grief, sickness, this pandemic and how there’s an inflection point where all of a sudden I realize that I’m through it. Not that I believe that this pandemic is done, especially because my kids are not yet eligible to be vaccinated and not the day-to-day was bad. It’s just that I was holding back a little reserve in order to gut it out.

When I first started mountain climbing, a guide taught me how to pressure breathe. To breathe out so forcefully that all the stale air in the lungs is expelled and it is possible to take a full inhale. The last three days feel like one big pressure breath, an exhale so powerful that I feel invigorated by all the fresh air I was able to breathe in.

And all that extra energy reminded me that it’s been a long time since I believed that I could really dream about what else is possible in my life. That’s what I did for the last 3 days – dreamed big, audacious dreams.