Dreamlings

We have all sorts of hopes when we are young. All sorts of dreams and ambitions. When I was eight, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I read dozens of books on marine life, and to this day, I can probably still recognize some kinds of fish and coral, and any kind of whale, dolphin or porpoise. (Yes, there is a difference.)

I had all these wonderful plans to go diving and discover the mysteries of the deep as soon as I was old enough to get my license. I got a bad ear infection from a resort’s swimming pool when I was nine and have since been unable to swim any deeper than six feet without feeling excruciating pain.

Bye-bye, marine biology. Of course, there were still other things to hope for, and like all resilient children, I would continue to hope.

By the time high school hit, I decided that I would be two things when I grew up: a writer and a rock star. I had a notebook everywhere I went and put pen to paper every time a pretty phrase or idea popped into my head. I didn’t think myself too bad at it. A bunch of friends and I put together a cover band that played emo before it was even called emo. (At least we weren’t doing Matchbox 20 covers. Oh, wait: we were, too. Shame!) We weren’t that good, but we had a deaf, otherwise healthy fan base of friends, classmates, and boyfriends’ classmates.

I thought I was well on my way to achieving everything I wanted, but then college came, and with it, disillusionment, further insecurity, and the intense fear of failure. There is nothing quite like a new environment and lots of strangers to shake your confidence. Everything stopped. The writing, the music, it was all gone. Whatever faith I had in my abilities, gone.

I still hoped for the same things. I decided that I would wait for opportunities to present themselves to me. Needless to say, I waited for a long time. The things I used to want for myself were happening to my friends and people around me while I was wallowing in bitterness and disappointment, wondering why I never got my chance.

Last Saturday, I got what might be the most important lesson of my life from my favorite writer, Neil Gaiman. He is the literary equivalent of a rock star. He told an early-morning audience of 300 people that the advice he always gave to people who said they wanted to write was to just write, and it dawned on me that this was exactly what I was not doing.

It happens to a lot of us, and it’s not just about writing. It’s about everything. It’s about your entire life. There’s a line between dreaming and achieving, and some of us never cross it. I was dreaming, yes, but not actively pursuing any of my dreams. I was too afraid to try, too afraid to chase after what I wanted, too afraid to take my chances and take my own destiny into my hands.

Mr. Gaiman said that the artist Dave McKean (his frequent collaborator) was once told that there were a million crappy drawings in him, and he had to draw them out before the good stuff could start coming. Not bothering to try because you’re afraid to fail is failure already. I finally got it.

A book I read for my photography class says that you are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. “You might have to work hard for it, however,” it wisely adds. I feel like I’ve been given a new lease on life, like suddenly I have all my dreams again and the hope is back. With these gifts from the Dream King himself, I have renewed determination to work hard and find ways to get what I want and become who I want.

I’m still a little scared of failure. Who isn’t? But I’m more scared of never giving myself a chance to discover exactly what I am capable of. The world is what you decide it is. The world is what you want it to be, what you make it to be. I’m not going to wait anymore.

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You can e-mail me at bewaretheashtraygirl@yahoo.com.