My Dreamers, My Dreams

Abacus was passionate about soccer. He knew he had found his true calling. Sure, he was eight. He carried a backpack full of rocks, to make him stronger. He read about it in a book by one of his soccer heroes. He wanted to be a professional soccer player. One day, a few years in, his Dad told him the odds of becoming a professional soccer player. He just plays for fun now.

Samurai was passionate about dance. She had been in love with dancing and the idea of being a ballerina since she was five years old. She trained five to seven days a week, was so excited when she made pointe. Her father says one day she looked up the salary of professional dancers and found they only made $27,000.00 per year on average. I don't think it happened then though. I think it happened when she went to auditions for summer intensive programs and didn't get the response she wanted. That was partially my fault. I wasn't prepared for them. I was not a proper dance mom. I hardly feel like a proper mom most of the time.

Abacus had a dream of going to UPenn. My parents told him our family didn't have the money for that and he needed to be realistic. He started looking at trade schools.

I had a dream of being a writer. But I buried it deep inside. I wanted to keep it safe from a critic's harsh words. I wanted my dream to live in secret. I suppose it still does.

I am angry about everyone's lost dreams. Not just me and my kids. But everyone in the world. Everyone who was told they couldn't do something and believed it. I am especially angry about my kids' father, who followed his dream of being a musician for half his adult life. Having not realized it after pouring his heart into it (and having it broken time and again), he injected his reality into the hearts of our children. Yet, his mother was unwaveringly supportive of his dreams ALL his life. I just wonder, if my kids or I had someone who believed in them the way he had his mother, would their dreams still be alive? I do know one thing, if not for his following his dream, he never would have met me, and our children would not exist.

Perhaps I shouldn't be angry at him though. Perhaps the person I am most mad at is myself. I didn't allow my dream to live. And I also allowed my kids' dreams to be killed. I know that it's never too late, and new dreams are just as beautiful as old dreams. But when something so beautiful and innocent as a child's dream is broken by circumstance or "reality", there's something that tears inside of me. Maybe that something is the wall around my dream.