In this current chapter of my life, I choose to reach for my dreams and wishes with all of my heart. This is because I know what it’s like to live a life that disregards them. I didn’t always feel free to chase my dreams. I used to compromise many things to maintain a life that I thought I wanted. One day, I realized that in order to have a chance to be truly fulfilled, I would have to endure a painful ending. I wanted to find a life that included possibilities for new things to explore, and that had room for options, so I could choose the path that felt right to me each day. There were many parts of myself that I had yet to accept and nourish, and I knew on a deep level that if my life continued in the direction it was going, I would never truly be happy.
I decided to step away from a life that felt like living in a pretty cage. This process seemed overwhelming at the time, but with every step, I moved toward a life that would allow me to choose my own adventure at every turn. Along the way, I never stopped dreaming and wishing that life would get better and easier for me. I never stopped reaching deeply within myself to feel guided toward my best path. There were times when it felt hopeless, and I was tempted to turn back and take the easier road. The healing journey is not for the faint of heart, and it felt in many ways like I was leaving an entire lifetime behind in order to start something fresh.
There are some dreams that I’ve always had that I never thought I would reach, and I’ve achieved a few of them over the past two years. A big part of my new life was going back to the basics of who I am in order to rebuild myself as who I want to be. I had to demolish the tower of who I was before I could break ground on my new journey. Destruction is at times a necessary part of life. I’m grateful now that I had the courage to demolish everything I had built in my early twenties. It seemed like a lot to give up at the time, but I had no idea how many amazing things were going to unfold in front of me once I let go of my old dreams and set my sights on the new ones. Allow your dreams to evolve, and make new wishes when the old ones wear out. Make wishes on stars, dandelions, in wishing wells, and don’t forget my personal favorite, your fallen eyelashes. Allow yourself to dream for things that seem out of reach, then find ways to imagine them into your reality. This life is too short for you to sacrifice your dreams to make other people happy, so choose yourself first.
“Everything that is real was imagined first.” – The Velveteen Rabbit