But that was back when everything was possible and before the reality of the world had truly sunk in. I was definitely a dreamer, things ranged from what I wanted to be when I grew up (a doctor, a lawyer, a policewoman, a princess, an astronaut, president of the united states, and most definitely, a rock star) to the possibility that I would wake up the next day and discover that I had learned to fly. I would write pages and pages of such things, in fact, I wrote stories before I knew how to read. I loved to read, but it was much nicer to create the dreams than to have them scripted for you.

Now I've grown up, in some respects anyhow, and the world is no longer at my feet but I have to climb my way up. It's dangerous to dream here, and you don't script your own dreams, the world around you does. Your skills and abilities dictate how far you will go, genetics seems to decide much of this. Society tells you what you should want, and how you must go about acheiving it.

The dreams still exist but behind them is a lining anything but silver. This lining is failure, and fear of it. One of my dreams is to find a soulmate and have a family, but there's always a voice in the back of my head: What if you never find someone? Another is to be successful in my profession, but what if you can't do it? Someday you might run into a wall, something insurmountable but it's too late to turn back... You struggle to find that balance between setting your sights high and setting yourself up for failure.

It would be so nice to be back in that place where dreams couldn't hurt you and you could have as many of them as you wanted. Someone should bottle that feeling up and sell it.

"Even if we can't know what it'll be like when the smoke clears, we do know that rage, for better or worse generates a future. The victims are the ones who've given up on the future. Instead, they've joined the dead."
-Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter

"...we will also learn to realize that that which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them..."
-Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"Things like this only get done by people who don't know any better."
-The exec. director of the Seattle Arts Commission giving me advice on starting up a huge project (I met with her because I felt passionate about this project and sent the SAC a letter).

What have we learned?
-Don't become a victim.
-You are in control of your life.
-Never become jaded...it'll only give you less of a chance to accomplish what you need to.

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