"Never stop dreaming, dreams make life bearable..."

Those are the wise words of my great and frequently mentioned friend, Karyn, whom as many of you know, passed away 5 years ago.

I’ve been dreaming a lot lately, and not in my usual vivid spidey-sensed kind of way. I’ve been dreaming about life and what I want to do with it once I break out of this prison and am able to live, and not sit on the couch all the time thinking about what I want to do. Seeing as I’m an avid reader, it’s only understandable that I’d want to visit the many places I read about. Since I’ve more or less done my Tudor court readings (I still have 2 Anne Bolyen books, but that Mary Queen of Scots book was so politically and religiously laden with information that my brain needs something that doesn’t force me to think so hard), so I’ve begun my much awaited Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution book, which has thus re-sparked my love affair with France and Marie Antoinette. So among my top places to travel post transplant are:

England
Scotland
Ireland
France

Other places that I want to travel to are:

New York
California (specifically San Fransisco to see the fabled cable cars and history! And experience an earthquake perhaps! Oooh…)
Texas (I don’t know why to be honest)
New Orleans (for the history)
Greece (I want to start reading about Greek history)
Italy
Australia (of course!)

And then since I want to see all that, I may as well travel within my own country, of which I’ve unfortunately done little. They are:

British Columbia (the Pacific ocean and the rainforest!)
Quebec (among the best places to go for colonial and history in my opinion)
Nova Scotia (been once and fell in love)
PEI (ROAD TO AVONLEA ENOUGH SAID)
Newfie-Land aka The Rock aka Newfoundland
Toronto (I got all the time, but the history within the city is outstanding)

So yes, I’ve got to come into a lot of money if I clearly want to do all of this, but even if I can’t, it’s the fact that I’ve extended my thoughts out so far as to mentally allow myself to dream about seeing these places. And I believe I will. Even if I can’t see all of them, I’m not going to deny myself the novelty of picturing myself in these places. I’m sure I can get some packaged deal somewhere anyways, right???

So yes, there is a lesson in today’s philosophical post: allow yourself to dream people. In my time spent waiting for transplant, I’ve had a lot of time to spend with myself, which not many people can say. How often do you people spend an afternoon with yourself getting to know what you truly like and who you truly are? Maybe I’m coming across as preachy, but I’ve noticed that the more that I learn about what I truly like and don’t like, the more that I can effectively get rid of the most of the bullshit in my life that comes in from other people. There’s so much bullshit and (channelling Holden Caufield) ‘phoniness’ in this world that it’s made me see that at the end of the day, the only person who can make you happy is yourself. If you can’t make yourself happy, you can’t expect anyone else to. And with that being said, if no one will dream with me, I will allow myself the freedom to dream on my own.

To quote myself, (yes, myself): Dreaming never hurt anyone if it merely inspired them.

So good day, and may your dreams (and your readings) be uninterrupted.

....Which actually leads me to another great observation from the book i'm reading, about reading, that people feel it's ok to interupt you when you're reading because you're not actually doing anything.

And speaking of doing something, I've noticed that when i do things, i get the shakes, so in essence, I should just not do anything that requires physical movement. Ever. Since in doing, i get shakey.

Who woulda thought?