Daily Mood Quote
Day 91 – August 2, 2011
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
~Henry David Thoreau
When I was a little girl, I kept a journal, a dairy. A place where I could put my thoughts, ideas, dreams, wishes, goals and fears. I loved to write. I had a secret dream in my dairy, something I never told anyone, because I never wanted anyone to crush my dream. Sometimes, my dreams where the only things that got me through a day; especially when my mom was having a bad day.
I wanted to be a writer, make a difference, change the world, add a different perspective, make people think. Unfortunately, my mother found my dairy and everything I had ever thought was now known by her. From wanting to be a nun (I was young) to wanting to change the world as a writer was in that diary. So, from that day forward, she told me; I was a terrible writer, I was stupid and nobody would ever read anything I wrote. She worked very hard to stop me from chasing, or fulfilling my dream as a writer. Did you ever hear the saying, “Tell someone something long enough and enough times, they begin to believe it?' This is what happened to me. For many years, I listened to how stupid I was, how ugly I was and what a terrible person I was. Eventually, I began to believe it. My grades dropped in school, I struggled with friendships, but most importantly; I stopped the one thing that made me feel alive...writing.
Harriet Tubman said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” It took me a long time to find my way back to writing again. Even in college I struggled the first two years with papers, now in my first year of grad school, I can't seem to shut up and have to watch my word and page count. Even in this blog, I have written varying lengths, some long and some short depending on the mood of the day.
In the movie Sister Act 2, Rita Watson (played by Lauryn Hill) says to a friend, “my mother thinks singin' is a dead end. No security.” But later in the movie, Sister Mary Clarence (played by Whoopi Goldberg) says to Rita, “I went to my mother. Who gave me this book...called Letters To a Young Poet. Rainer Maria Rilke. He's a fabulous writer. A fellow used to write to him and say: “I want to be a writer. Please read my stuff.” And Rilke says to this guy:”Don't ask me about being a writer. If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing...then you're a writer.” This was said to Rita to inspire her to read the book and to be the singer she was meant to be. She didn't have her mother's support or blessing, because her mother didn't understand, or didn't want to believe in the talent her daughter possessed, much like my mom didn't believe, or couldn't believe.I'll never really know, we never talked about it.
When we are young, our dreams and talents can be buried under a mudslide of other people's fears, ignorance and the emotional baggage of our family and friends. But like a seed buried under a mudslide, they can reemerge when the weight and pressure is washed away by the gentle rain of passing time. When the dreams surface again, it's then up to us to either nurture and grow them, or to let them lay. Sometimes, they grow anyway and we are compelled to attend to them, until they bear the fruits they were always meant too. I love to write and my husband is a painter and for years, many have tried to squash those talents, but they just keeping growing, bigger, stronger and better. I guess some things are just "meant to be" (thank you Robert from Everybody loves Raymond). Destiny awaits us.
What dreams will come to the surface for you today?
Tune in tomorrow to read the daily mood quote
Thank you for reading
