As I type this now I’m sitting next to a group of teenagers. I am eavesdropping on their conversation about future marriages and college careers. They are lively and full of hope and excitement for their future. One says, “Let’s make a pact. If we’re not all married by 30, we’ll marry each other.”
Cute.
I’m not so sure if group marriage will be legal by the time these kids reach adult age, but the idea of them setting goals and making plans is adorable. And I’m not even being cynical.
Well, maybe I’m being a little cynical.
It’s just that listening to them, I’m reminded of a time when I was their age and I too made all these plans. You know what they say:
If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.
I know God was having a good laugh at me.
When I was in middle school, me and my two best friends at the time formed a girl group. (Boy bands and girl groups were all the rage in the early 2000s.) We liked to sing and dance and had similar tastes in music so we figured why not?
We would write lyrics for songs and share them with each other. We filmed videos in our television production class and recorded on that old Sound Recorder app on Windows (this was before YouTube). We even came up with a name and fake clothing line.
I thought we were gonna be HUGE.
In my mind, there was no need to make plans for high school because surely we would get discovered, get flewed out to LA and become big time stars before we turned 15.
I would eventually get a solo recording deal, win several Grammys, and then disappear for awhile until I emerged with a book deal years later. The rest was history.
Needless to say, none of that happened. We never even performed on a real stage. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.
But it was so much fun to dream, you know?
Listening to those kids, so eager and excited about what was ahead of them, reminded me of who I was back then.
What happens to us when we grow up? Why do we stop dreaming big dreams?
Once upon a time, I was that kid with big dreams and the whole world at my feet.
Once upon a time YOU were that kid.
What dreams have you laid to the side? What dreams do you have that need to be revived?
The other day someone asked me how old I was and when I told them I just turned 30, they seemed surprised. Like wow-I-didn’t-know-you-were-that-old surprised. (Thanks to my great genes, I look pretty young for my age.) I felt a twinge then, but today I’m feeling a bit of dirty 30 pride.
I mean, I’m old enough to have gained some wisdom about the real world but to have lost some of the naïveté of my younger self. Unlike the teenyboppers, I know not to put limits on my age anymore.
Not Too Late
It’s never too late to create new dreams for yourself. It’s never too late to revive old dreams.
It’s not too late for me to become Beyoncé. Or J.K Rowling. Or my best self.
It’s not too late for you to become whoever you want to be either.
I work with small children on a daily basis and there’s nothing like watching a kid play make-believe. I mean, they get really into it! They become princesses slaying evil queens and superheroes saving the planet.
You can’t convince them that what they’ve dreamt up in their mind isn’t real.
Maybe we should look at the world through a child’s eyes again. We can start to see it as a place full of opportunities to be whoever we want to be. A place where anything is possible.
It’s not too late.
What were some of your childhood dreams? I’d love to hear them!
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