On Dreamitus:

I have dreamitus. (No I do not mean dermatitis.) What I do is, I build castles in the air. Day dreams.

Fortunately for me, I’m a writer and can have these world of mine come to life in word and print. Even if those worlds are just for my own enjoyment, as most of them are. I recently finished getting the main story portion of two books that play off of each other typed out. The only reasons that the books are not complete is because I have been making their world in the physical. I created dolls and houses, clothing and furniture, stuff and clutter for them so I could use this now massive amounts of stuff to take pictures of them as illustrations for the books. And no, I will never ever do that again. I did build, sew, collect, paint, glue, mold, and or made it all myself. It may just be mostly cardboard and paste/hot glue but it is my world come to life. The other reason it took so long is I was fighting cancer for a while in there.

Anyway, I now have to go back and tweak the story to match the details as they pan out in the illustration phase of this ten+ year project. (And yes, I do have to finish making some things for the pictures.) I brought this all upon myself by letting my imagination get away from me after I made the first doll. But the story writing phase of the project is done. (No, I have no intentions of writing more stories for them. I have other books in the works that I want to finish and other worlds in my head I want to get down on paper. And lets face it, I‘ve been at this particular project for a little too long already.)

This coming to an end is a double edged sword. I feel great now that I have all the information down on paper. But after all this time of having the dolls and their world evolve in the physical, I am sad about it coming to an end. They are somewhat like children to me. The main difference is that these children have done what ‘I’ wanted them to do and evolved into the people ‘I’ wanted them to. Not like my own children ‘The Shining Son’ and ‘The Daughter Princess.’

Don’t get me wrong here. My kids turned out to be fine individuals that have added a plus to society and found their own nitch in their lives. And I was never one of those mothers that wanted my kids to fulfill my dreams for them. I let them build their own dreams and lives. But one of the differences is my doll children are also stagnant. They never age, grow old or die. They don’t have trials that demand my attention at inopportune times. In essence although they are physical, they aren’t real. I can’t send them out into the world to grow and mature on their own. But after so much time doteing on them I almost wish they could.

The thing I started getting at in the beginning is that I’ve been doing the happy dance around in the kitchen. The feeling of accomplishment after so long is quite heady. This is lost on my husband, Mountain Man. No, He understands accomplishing something and the feeling you get when you are done. But in his eyes I’m not done. All the ‘Stuff’ is still taking up space in our house. I’m still crafting away and spending time at the keyboard. And not by the way spending all my attention on lets say, the housework. Not that he married me for those skills by the way. I am doing happy dances and getting sideward glances from Mountain Man.

So here I sit sharing with you and I’m having a bit of a conundrum. Do I just let my feelings flow freely and dance or get down to reality and back to work? Not to worry this is not a man versus women thing or even a him and me thing. This is a procrastination thing. It’s an, I want to have my cake and eat it too, thing. A, prolong the fun because the work and although fun work it is still work, thing.

I Know, I know, make hay while the sun shines. Get back at it before the momentum dies. But the feeling still is there that this is a big accomplishment in my life and I want to celebrate it. But my celebrating rings a bit hollow when I am the only one at the party. So humming a tune I dance in my kitchen by myself. But wait a minute! Here comes Mountain Man. No, it wasn’t the refrigerator he was after. And we dance. Happy accomplishments everyone!