Dreams...

Kirby and I put everything on hold yesterday to sit down and watch the Formula One (F1) Grand Prix in Melbourne, Australia. It was a fantastic race. This year saw the introduction of new cars with new specifications and rules, and as a result many drivers struggled, and some did not finish the race.

One driver who is particularly popular is Daniel Ricciardo. He is 24 years of age and is incredibly talented, as well as being an overall genuinely nice man. It is very rare to see him without a huge smile on his face. And he is Australian.

He has taken up the place in the Infiniti Red Bull Racing team left by fellow Australian, Mark Webber, who retired from F1 last year.

Ricciardo had me dancing around the lounge room yesterday as he took second place and his first ever place on the podium, alongside German, Rosberg, and Danish rookie, Kevin Magnussen.

You are probably wondering now why I am writing a summary of an F1 race. But there is a reason.

This morning we woke to find out that Ricciardo had been stripped of his second place and disqualified due to a technicality. I could have cried – actually, I almost did as tears were sitting just on my lower eye lids.

Ricciardo’s team is appealing. Hopefully they will be successful and Ricciardo will be reinstated as the second place winner.

The whole saga has reminded me that dreams are so very fragile. We came so close to our dream of having children realized. We appealed, in a way, through using IVF, but our appeal was not successful.

Ricciardo came so close to having his dream of a place on the podium realized. It’s not over for him, and I can only hope his dream is fulfilled.

Everyone has dreams of doing, having and achieving different things in their lives, but nothing in life is guaranteed, despite what many self-help gurus, be positive mantras, and just believe quotes say.

I now have the dream of being a successful novel writer. I also have the dream of travelling more. And I want to do more hiking, get a kayak, and have more outdoor adventures.

Will I do all of this?

Will I achieve all of this?

I don’t know. I’ll do my best, but I just don’t know. I guess the next thing to think about is whether it’s worth trying. If success isn’t guaranteed then why put my efforts into anything? After all, we tried IVF and that didn’t work.

It would be so easy to give up, spend my life watching television, and living a basic life just getting by. But I can’t do that. I have to try. It’s true that there has to be a balance between keeping on trying and realizing when it’s time to move on and readjust and rethink my dreams, which is a tricky thing to do. It’s very hard to know when it’s time to move on.

I have learnt a lot through trying to have a child through IVF. One of the biggest lessons is how to deal with broken dreams. I have more understanding of how sometimes my dreams need to be given up, of how important it is for me to grieve for those dreams, and of how I can create new dreams even though I’ll never forget the dreams I once had. I am stronger than I thought I was.  That strength does not mean I don’t ever get upset or cry or get angry. Instead it means I know how to be with and gently move through those times.

I know so much more about myself than I used to, and I don’t want to let that knowledge and the lessons I have learnt go to waste. I can apply all of it to pursuing new dreams, and I will.

Whatever happens, I’ll keep going.

If things fall flat, if the trail to my dreams goes cold, if I find I can’t keep going with one or two of my dreams, then I’ll get up, get back in my car, and try again on a new track.

If Daniel Ricciardo can do it – then so can I.