I was born a dreamer, I don’t remember how it started, but I remember that one evening when I was just about 8 years old, I made an announcement to my Mum. “Mummy I know what I want to be when I grow up” I ran after her in excitement as she trudged up the stairs with my father’s supper on a tray.
“I want to be a musician, I want to have a band and sing for people.”
“Oh great” my Mum replied, “We will just get some of your friends to join you and buy you a guitar.” I felt the increasing excitement in my chest as I screamed, “Yes!” Then she continued, ” I will shave your head, wear you long earrings and you will go and make a fool of yourself on stage.”
I swear, my heart stopped beating for a moment; at the realization that she was mocking me. I was heartbroken as the humiliation slashed my heart like a whip. It was just a sentence, but the words sharper than a knife pushed my dreams off the shelf, they shattered like glass. I had never felt such humiliation, never felt so derided as she told me that I was growing up, I had to face reality.
I couldn’t stop dreaming. I know that books fueled my hunger and dreams fueled my beating heart and that by the time I was 13, I was memorizing to heart, speeches by Martin Luther King Jnr. By the time I was 15, I was quizzed when my mates where excited about parties and boys, I thought that kind of fun was unnecessary, I would rather sit at home and memorize, Wole Soyinka’s Poetry.
Mother would often times tell me, “you are always fantasizing, don’t expect so much from life so that you wont be disappointed.” Looking back, I know she just wanted to protect me.
However, I didn’t listen because I was born a dreamer, I was the strange one, the plain one, the fantasizer, the dreamer.
I remember that I even had a little book where I wrote about the things I wanted to be, I could tell no one, not even my mum.
But my mother was not the only one who laughed at me, my friends did. A particular friend laughed hilariously as I wept profusely when I received a new copy of the book, “Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie” to replace the old copy I had as a birthday gift. It was tears of joy. I had read mine over 30 times and it had practically shred to pieces from too much handling.
I was the strange one, the plain one, the too-serious one, I was the dreamer.
I remember that I gained a new perspective when I started to worry about what the future held in store for me in my final year in the university. Who would I become; What was my life going to be?
A friend shared with me a quote from Joyce Meyer,”My future is so bright I’ll need sunglasses to see it.” That profound statement never left me, so I reminded myself from then on to dream of a bright future, to dream that I was always wearing sunglasses.
I was the strange one in my office, I remember being laughed at by my colleagues at work when I attempted to wax a music album. “This Chinenye wants to do everything, who told you that you can sing?”
I laughed with them, I laughed at myself, maybe they thought that it would make me feel bad. What they didn’t know was that my mother had laughed at me, my childhood friends had laughed at me, everybody had laughed at my dreams but I was a die-hard dreamer, it was an obsession that couldn’t leave me by merely laughing at me.
And so the more they laughed at me, the more I laughed, not just at myself but at them, because I knew that one day, my dreams would come true and the lofty feats for the which I dreamed would one day laugh with me.
I dreamed up my man and he came almost made, I dreamed up my two beautiful kids and they came exactly as I envisioned them. I dreamed up my entire life, I dreamed up my several business interests and got fantastic profits from them.
I am well on my way to where I want to go.
One day I shared my dream with a friend and he said “Go ahead, I will back you up.” I got into a dress, wore some make up, curled my weave and now I am writing about my dream for all the world to see.
What I want to share with you is this.
Never stop dreaming, never stop believing. Live your life to the fullest, hope for a better day, a brighter future.
Live life with all you have got and purpose to dream so that you can live that dream regardless of the circumstances.
This article is dedicated to the plain ones, the strange ones, fantasizers, the ones who have dreams that no one can take away; this article is dedicated to YOU!
Dream on…
Write the vision; make it plain, so he may run who reads it. Hab 2:2
Be sociable, share.
Metrowoman 