I have a dream...

Or rather, I had a dream...
When I was a girl, I imagined myself with 8 children (yes, eight!). In my mind I saw the family seated around a big brown table, eating dinner together each evening. I imagined loud laughter, lots of frivolity, arms reaching across the table, everyone comfortable together. I was seated with my spouse at the head of this table, proud of the wild brood that we'd created.

Okay, that is so not going to happen. For so many reasons. The first of which is that having babies is just much harder work than I ever imagined way back then.

But the other day I was sitting at our big brown table surrounded by nine friends. We were eating together and were all set for a night full of boardgames. As I quietly counted each person I felt this huge wave of deja vu. Like this was something I had lived before. And it was then that I realized that my dream was fulfilled. Not by giving birth to eight children, but by opening our home to our old & new friends.

I love knowing that so many different people have sat around our table and that I can call each them my friend. I am looking forward to many, many more pleasant memories with the folks who gather at our hearth (both literally and metaphorically through our online communities). Like that well-worn phrase that says mi casa et su casa, please know that there's always a spare chair that we can pull up to our table just for you. :)