Pretember

I know I misspell a lot of words here and have all sorts of editing mistakes. In all honesty, I just sit, write and then send it out into the world,  as I would rather spend my time painting, gardening, reading or tackling my huge to do list than edit. But, I did not misspell the title of this blog post.

It is actually my favorite word of all time.  You won’t find it in the dictionary, yet, but it does exist. It is a special word that I believe has magical powers, especially when it comes from my son, Chachi’s mouth. It is one of many words that my boys have mixed up or gotten wrong as toddlers and little boys and it is the one word I refuse to “correct” because I think it is already so right.

Pretember can be used for both pretend and remember.  I will hear him say when he plays with his cousin Bo, “pretember that you are a cheetah and I’ll pretember to be a shark.”  Or he will come ask me, “pretemeber when we went to the farm and saw the baby pigs?” It is just the cutest thing to hear him say it. I will try to work a conversation to see if it will pop out of his mouth. Perhaps, what makes it even better is that Chachi is my strong, private, tough, super masculine boy with a sweet, high-pitched voice that melts my heart. So when that voice says “Pretember” it stops me in my tracks. I know he will lose the word soon. He is 6 and has no idea that he isn’t at least 10 or 11. As the third, who gets to share a room with his two big brothers, he has never realized that he is as young as he actually is and he does a pretty good job of keeping up.

A year ago, I was in the Evolve class through the Arts Incubator of the Rockies, based here in Fort Collins. To me it was a business class for artists, creatives, entrepreneurs… anybody with an idea, dream or passion. Between the classes that give you a road map of steps to follow and the one on one coaching sessions, I was able to take my pretend and set it in motion. I am just at the beginning of this journey into my dream of being a working artist, and as I sit here and remember the past year the word that comes to mind and best describes this how to keep moving forward is of course, pretember.

I am a wonderfully talented daydreamer. Sometimes, I am so grateful for the escape my daydreams can take me, other times, quite honestly, I scare myself, but the best is when I can turn them into healthy intention. When my pretend daydream leads to a goal, because it is too consuming to ignore, I have to pay attention and remember my passion for it is pointing me in the right direction… pretember.  The word feels like it hits me at a cellular level. The combination of pretending and remembering seems too perfect. Pretend you can reach for anything you set your mind, and more importantly, your heart too and always remember what your reason for doing so in the first place. Pretending and remembering at the same time seems to lead to action, carries you through difficult days, sparks new ideas and makes those wonderful daydreams a reality.

Happy Pretembering!!