Dream Nothing

Twenty seven years ago (that's all the way back in 1988!), my mom started writing about me in a journal called The Dream Nothing book. She started in '88 when I was three and continued until 1995. The book goes from my birth all the way up to past my tenth birthday.

My mom writes mostly about surgeries, doctors, therapies, and other bits of medical or developmental info. But there's a lot about me growing up, as well. It's kind of funny going from one paragraph about a certain major surgery to another about the Terrible Two's, or from a major milestone like my first steps to my first boy-girl school dance!

The Dream Nothing Book also revealed a lot of things I hadn't known about myself, some kind of shocking. I've died at least once, after my lungs collapsed after an MRI. I also learnt that I had shockingly low self esteem when I was younger. On the lighter side, I learnt that my first word was platypus and my love of pigs started at barely four years old after seeing pig farms while camping in Prince Edward Island.

My mom's last entry was November of 1995. Flash forward to Spring of 2009. I knew this book existed, but I had never actually read it until this point. So, I read it and was pretty amazed. I was so moved that I decided to add to it myself!

As a gift for her birthday (in July), and as a way to stave off boredom while I was home doing next to nothing (this was before I took Scriptwriting), I began writing about almost fifteen years worth of personal, medical, and family events. From the beginning of Grade 5 through college. I chronicled numerous birthdays, surgeries, Christmases, vacations, Tae Kwon Do tests and sledge hockey games and sadly, even a couple deaths and screw ups.

I gave the new material to my mother as a present on her birthday that year, which she read while on vacation.

I've added a couple more entries over the years. Each time, I say it'll be the last entry and each time something new and exciting happens that's worth writing about. My mom has even said that she'd like to start writing again as well, so maybe in another couple years, I'll pick up the dream nothing book and get to read a bit more.

Cheers!