Dreams

We see life in snippets. I was chastised by the nun in third grade. Rewarded by my gymnastics coach in high school. Family life breeds these actions in spades.

When I was 16 I was supposed to take care of my little brother and sister, ages nine and six, at a pool and on a beach in Florida for their vacation. I was off at college and had a break.

They drove me nuts, swimming for hours at a time. Finally they went upstairs and took a nap and I got a few moments to myself. A young girl came up to me and asked if I could teach her gymnastics (I was teaching summers back home), and I asked what she wanted to learn and if it was OK with her father. We spent 20 minutes learning basics.

While she was cooling down her father approached me and asked me what I wanted to be. I didn’t know yet. He said “If you’re a doctor, you deal with problems. If you’re a lawyer, you deal with problems. If you’re an architect, you deal with dreams.” Whoever you are, I will remember this to my dying day.

I kissed a lot of frogs as to job selection and boyfriends. There was a career path, unbeknownst to me. It led me to my husband at age 40.

After 14 years together we are so different, he’s a genius geek and I’m the emotional brainy social side. It works. Now I cook dinner and take care of our dog and am the nurturer and blogger. With the dog, Zoe, he gets to be The Fun Guy. Who does she wait for at the front door? The Food Wench and Disciplinarian. Me.

I just realized we are both architects. We build companies, for-profit and not-for-profit. I’m retired (sorry, non-profits). We dream, we build, effect change for the better even if some companies want to and are destined to fail. None have on our watch.

Ideas. Great things. Fixing problems. We’re not “the fixer” as in a certain George Clooney movie. We are brought in to make things right, to be an architect for change. To the girl’s dad I met many years ago, thank you. To my Dad, thank you. You know this story and gave me the knowledge and experience I needed. Cheers! Dee