When I was young I had one of those turtle sandboxes. I would play outside for hours with my brothers and we would chase our dog or climb the apple tree. The sandbox was my favorite though. One summer afternoon I was eating sunflower seeds and decided I would grow my own garden. I poured my bag of gas station sunflower seeds into my turtle sandbox and dreamed of a sunflower garden.
As a little girl, I wanted to be a princess. This unrealistic dream was how I imagined myself. My little heart thought I would grow up to be princess with long blonde hair. My black lab border collie mix would be my partner in slaying dragons. Isn't this how every little girl thought? I didn't want to just be any princess though, I didn't want to be Cinderella or Snow White. No, I was going to be a fashion designing princess. I was a very imaginative young child.
The fantasy of being a princess with long blonde hair ended when I shaped into a gypsy with multicolored hair. And I had to kiss my mutt goodbye in middle school. My royalty fantasy was shattered forever when I ran off to an adult reality known as college.
It seems like every year of college I receive a "Come to Jesus Moment." Freshmen year it was Rush album playing at 4 a.m., Sophomore year it was me crying on the bathroom floor over a loser from my hometown, and most recently it was me putting my Vans on at 1 in the morning. Me, in a Misfits t-shirt with no make-up on saying to my boyfriend, "I waited 20 years to pay $20,000 a year to be depressed."
I just wanted to be a fashion designer, I didn't want to take Math 125, and live in a dorm without air. I was going to live in a castle, remember? I was supposed to be a princess, not a girl in a community shower that runs out of water after 10 minutes. Where was my dress fit for a princess? Now I live in ripped up band t-shirts and dirty hair. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I wear dresses all the time. But I was supposed to be royalty! And I stare at the ceiling and think, "Where did that little girl go that once planted sunflower seeds in her turtle sandbox?"
We are big dreamers when we are young, we conjure up visions of ourselves and we honestly believe them. We are told at a young age that we can do anything because of who we are. Maybe we are princes and princess, just in the form of our major. What if our dragons were just finals and group projects? Those castles that we dreamed of residing in ended up being old dorms with no air and radiator heat. Our dragon slaying partners? They are our best friends, our significant others, or maybe we can just save ourselves.
We lose sight of our dreams when our wallet is empty because of a $100 textbook and we have a professor's voice ringing in our ears, "you aren't talented." When we are surrounded by demons and negative energy we forget our child hearts. I remember dumping my sunflower seeds into my turtle sandbox and my brothers told me they wouldn't grow. There was no way David Sunflower Seeds could grow into real flowers. We are told every day our dreams won't come true yet we plant them like seeds.
We plant our dreams like seeds in a sandbox praying that they bloom.
It's funny though. In the most inopportune place, with the people around saying it won't grow, I planted a bag of roasted sunflower seeds. I don't believe in magic. But somehow, miraculously, I grew a garden of sunflowers that summer.
