Always Dream

By:Lyndy L.

Always Dream: That's the title of a wonderful autobiography for kids written by Olympic Figure Skating Champion, Kristi Yamaguchi. It's also the title of a series of memory albums I'm creating to chronicle the efforts, accolades, and dreams of my own little figure skater.

She's only eight years old and has been skating about a year and a half. Most skaters her age have been skating three or four years. But, even in this short period of time, she's had great success in competitions and shown some real talent. Will she ever skate in the Olympics like her idol, Kristi? Highly unlikely - but that's not the point of her skating, and it's not the point of these albums.

Sure, her medals and ribbons and the results of every competition are included in the Always Dream albums. But, there is so much more I wish to honor: her dedication and sportsmanship, the joy she finds in this unique form of self-expression, and the amazingly powerful feelings I have when observing her grace and beauty on the ice.

More importantly, I hope that these albums will ultimately reveal how skating is impacting her as a person, how it is shaping the woman she will become. I can already see just how powerful this impact is - what it's done for her sense of self, what it's taught her about the value of hard work, how it has given her great confidence and poise, what she's learned about winning and losing with grace . . . all immeasurably important life lessons - lessons that, without these albums, she would would be unable to trace as the source of much of who she is as an adult.

During our childhood years, we all have influences like this that shape who we become -- yet how many of us can truly remember and appreciate them? And that is the one thing for which I truly love scrapbooking -- the opportunity it provides me for my own bit of creative self-expression, while preserving all the richness of of our lives for us to enjoy and appreciate in the years to come.

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: "It's nice to see you do this again.", by A.J. from Idaho Falls, ID