I often wonder why I don't just shut up and do that something amazing that I know that I am able to do. I know it's not a matter of failure because I'm okay with failing if that is the case. Perhaps it's more the idea of success. If I achieve all of my dreams and my goals, what then do I have to imagine? If I become the writer I know I can be, the coffee shop owner I know I will be, what's next? It's like finding love I guess. You go through your life dreaming of the day that you will meet your true love, imagine the day you walk down the aisle, the day you bear your first child, and then out of the blue those things happen. So what do you imagine next? I suppose, for me, these poetic dreams of writing for a living and owning my own sanctuary have always been a part of me. To actually have them? I just don't know if I would know what to do next. But is there a "next"? What if that's it? Dreams are a force inside of you. They push you, mold you, love you in a way only they can. When they become reality, they are no longer that romantic thought, that far fetched whim. They are tangible and real and become just like the lunches that have to be made, the laundry that has to be done, the job that you have to go to. They aren't these fantastical, hypothetical journeys anymore. So what is it that I am saying? Am I saying that it's not worth it to chase your dreams? Am I saying that wanting all your life is better than having? Honestly I don't know what I'm saying. I can't make up your mind for you. All I know is that those are the questions I battle with. I will be published one day. I will own my shop, too... when I decide that I am ready for them to be more than a thought in my head.
My father once told me that he was disappointed in me because I did not live up to the potential he knew I had. Did I get angry at him? Nah. It would have been a pointless anger because I get it. Most of my life I have flown on the wings of mediocrity. Being anything more than that was taxing to a woman who was a single mother. Sure, I wanted to show my daughter that everyone has wings to soar but it was always more important to put food on the table, shoes on her feet, a roof over her head. I saw the look in my father's eyes and I knew that I was a disappointment because I was a disappointment to myself. The one thing that I have always been good at was being a mother. I wouldn't trade that one thing for a million published novels or a billion coffee shops. My dreams could wait... at least until she was old enough to chase her own.
She is halfway to adult hood and I suppose that is why these questions have started to form more loudly in my head. She will leave the nest soon, leaving me to figure out what it is I'm supposed to do now that I am not needed anymore. She won't need her lunches made or her laundry done or a cuddle at night. So why is it that I don't get off my ass? Perhaps the little girl in me deserves the same chance to chase her dreams, too.
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