dreaming and doing, continued

So I have been keeping this a secret. I haven't shared. I have been afraid to. For some reason I am feeling like taking a risk...

I want to be a photographer.

There, I said it. For starters, its monumental to get me to commit to anything other than my girls. I am indecisive and commitment-phobic. The thought of making a living, or not, based solely on one of my abilities...well that makes me feel vulnerable. And I don't like it. I have had more people tell me that I should pursue photography, and that it is my calling. Whats up with this calling stuff, anyway? If we are going to call it a "calling" then it ought to be telephoned right to us...so we know. So we don't doubt and question and talk ourselves out of moving toward it. I know its sad, but nobody knows what it takes for me to believe that I might be great at something...that I just might have been given a gift.

This is what I dream of:

I dream of taking pictures, beautiful pictures. I dream of calling attention to the details that overwhelm me, that others rarely notice. I dream of relationships with little human beings- watching them grow and change. I don't want to get rich. I want to offer incredible quality for a reasonable amount of money, because I know what it is like to be single, living paycheck to paycheck. I took up the camera because I wanted unique, beautiful pictures of Brooklyn, and I couldn't afford a decent portrait studio or photographer. Fine artwork of the most beautiful parts of ourselves, our lives, shouldn't only be available to those who have hundreds of dollars to spend. My mom paid for newborn pictures of Brooklyn. She paid several hundred dollars. If I didn't have her generosity, I wouldn't have been able to have those pictures. And they are beautiful, but I have a confession: Eight hundred and some dollars later, I looked at those portraits and thought- Should have had her buy me a camera, I could have taken better pictures.
And I want to start a program, in addition to the services I will offer to the general public. I want to start a program for foster kids/local children's home. Oftentimes those kids grow up with hardly any pictures of themselves as children. I want to take their pictures. I want to create unique albums that they can keep forever. I want them to know that it was important to someone that they have their pictures taken.
I don't know what will develop (no pun intended :o) of this dream I have. But it won't change tomorrow. I have chosen it. Or maybe it has chosen me. I am learning. I have even gone so far as to ask others for help (gasp!) and I know that God will orchestrate something. I know I have to get to the right place, before I can offer myself completely to this. The time is not now, but it is soon. Real soon.
In the mean time, I am thankful for this season. A season of rest, of mothering, of long days with just my little girls, of the beginning stages of living a dream.

I am living. Indeed I am.

Thanks Nita, for putting things in perspective.

Thanks Mom and Dad, for giving me a place for the dreams to flourish.