Ever since I was a kid, I always had an active imagination. I would look up at the stars at night and dreamed of flying up there to float amongst the stars while looking down on the world. When I took my first flight, I remember looking out the window and seeing this stunning view of just being above the clouds and being blown away at the fact that I was in the sky, flying above clouds and almost literally on cloud 9 with my excitement. To this day I still get that excitement when I travel and when I stop to take a moment to look at the same stars I’ve seen since I was a kid.
As a kid I not only had an active imagination but I also had dreams. Huge dreams. Just like any other kid in kindergarten I wanted to be a race car driver, an astronaut, a musician and of course, a doctor (which I am pursing now). But being a girl, I wasn’t quite encouraged amongst my peers as a child to pursue things like being a race car driver or an astronaut. I was told that since I was a girl, I wouldn’t be able to handle it and that I should go into a more lady like profession. How was little me supposed to know that one of the most powerful things I already was, was a girl. I would come home and talk to my parents about what I was told and my dad would always sit me down and ask me, “Well, why can’t you become a [insert male dominated profession here]?” and I would cry and tell him that I just wasn’t good enough or smart enough and would spew out some false excuse society had given to me.
As I grew older I of course wanted to try everything and anything and I was blessed to have parents who encouraged my every hobby (whether I stuck with them or not) and because of this I got to try so many things in my childhood. I thank my lucky stars everyday that my parents never told me I had to stick with something even if I didn’t like it. Of course they were still serious in that I try these new hobbies for awhile until I really had a feel for it but they would never make me stick with a hobby that I truly didn’t care for. In the end, these hobbies gave me a love of reading, 10+ years’ worth of experience playing the violin, 9 years involved with choir, as well as dancing and theatre mixed into that as well.
Where am I today? As of right now I am currently a Junior in college and am a biology major on the pre-med track. Being at this stage of my life I can be completely honest and say that I am stressed and always busy with school, work, my social life and various other activities. All of those activities ensure that I am super busy and crazy tired at the end of the day where I am falling asleep just reading a book or being on my phone. But a little while ago, it dawned on me that I was already living my life in a way that created joy for me but primarily for others. I was put on this path since it is what I was always working up towards in life. Going to college after high school and becoming a successful doctor. Now don’t get me wrong, those goals are still things I do want to accomplish for myself since I love helping people. But at the same time, what about my dreams? Not my career dreams. Those dreams that little me had while looking up at the sky until she fell asleep dreaming of dancing amongst the stars? They got put to the wayside as the reality of life set in but as I was half way through college I realized that I still had the chance and opportunities to fulfill as many dreams as I wanted to. My parents were even so kind enough to tell me that I didn’t have to be a doctor if I didn’t want to and that made me cry. They wanted this for me for so long and to just have them say that I should be happy means the world to me. But I realized that I could still be happy being a doctor and pursing my other dreams as well such as being a singer, a pilot, and traveling the world. Just because you’re on one path doesn’t mean that you can’t take a detour every now and then to reach your final destination. So, to the girl who’s so caught up in life that she forgot her dreams, please stop. Stop and take a moment to breathe. To reconnect with yourself and remember the tiny version of you that daydreamed for hours at a time, lost in their own imagination. Take that initiative to live the life that YOU want to live. You only get one, who says that you only get to do and be one thing? I know I sure as hell am fitting as much into my life as I can and I hope that you do the same.
