I have always been a dreamer, and as all dreamers know, dreams just get bigger and crazier the longer you roll with them. I remember being a junior in high school headed to Nashville with my best friend for a One Direction concert. We stood and danced and sang out our hearts while those gorgeous boys ended the concert with "Best Song Ever" when Niall caught my eye and waved at me and blew me a kiss. And me, being the dreamer, took it as fate. I was destined to marry Niall Horan and live on a tour bus for all eternity (you know you did, too).
Looking back, I realize that was far-fetched, but no dream has ever been too big or unattainable for me. You name it, I have played it through my brain more times than you can count. And each replay would further solidify in my brain these dreams. By the time I was about to graduate high school, I had racked up so many dreams that were never going to happen, but I was fully convinced that all of them would happen. You see, I had gorged myself on this lie that life is made up of dreams fulfilled, wishes received. All the Disney movies had me convinced that everything I wanted out of life would someday come to me. I would climb mountains and meet dashing strangers! I would travel the globe and find the adventure of a lifetime! Cinderella herself told me that if I kept on believing, the dreams that I wished would come true! Wasn’t that the way life was supposed to happen?
Fast forward to now.
I am a married, 20-year-old college dropout with no job, no car, and very little money. Most of my days are spent typing away at the computer, or playing with all of the nieces and nephews. I have yet to walk the Great Wall or visit any European country, both of which should have happened by now. If I had to rate the success of my life based on a Disney movie, it probably wouldn’t even register on the scale. I am still a little girl full of unfulfilled wishes and half-finished novels, and the truth is, I am totally okay with it.
It is okay if life doesn’t pan out the way you first thought it would, because life is never set in stone. Life is a whirlwind of people and places and things and moments, and the honest truth is that you have to find the beauty in all of it.
I had no intention of being a babysitter at twenty, but that is what happened. I have two older sisters-in-law with seven kids between them, and who is the one person home all day long? Me. So, I babysit, and I make lunches and watch Zootopia until I’m quoting it. I change nasty diapers and shush kids to sleep. I go outside and explore with the boys, and I dance and sing with the girls. I dreamed of tall, dark strangers wooing me in the dark streets of London, and I got a dimpled nephew sitting in my lap, telling me how much he loves me.
The greatest moments in my life so far have been nothing like I imagined. They have been holding a baby the doctors said would ever exist. They have been spent sitting around a campfire as my best friend plays his guitar. They have been sitting in a coffee shop until closing time because the conversation is so good. They have been letting my grandpa push the swing even though I’m a big girl now.
Don’t let the world convince you that your life is not good enough because it doesn’t measure up to a standard set by someone you don’t even know. Don’t dream so much that you can’t appreciate the life that you have been given. Take each day, with all of its mundane happenings, and find the beauty in all the adventures you will never have.