Dreaming dreams

A dream is a wish your heart makes, while you’re sound asleep. However I dream a waking dream, I aspire to inspire. My plans for this year are but a penny in the pond of problems, a mere page of the bible we call the works of our countries, of our world as its whole. It has been my goal to become a published author, and very recently I was asked to speak out my story. Reality can be stranger than fiction, more horrifying than any Friday the Thirteenth or Gremlin.

So my plan for this year is to speak out, I’ve hesitated. I’ve made excuses, and turned away. I lowered my voice and took a back seat. The passive view of letting the world rot away from this cancerous movement. I’m not even thirty and I feel like perhaps I’m more jaded in my life than someone twice or thrice my age. Fascinating notion isn’t it?

A project I supported from the time I was in school, asked me a question. I did reference it just before, the question is simple. “What’s your word?” From the MyIntent project, I found it mesmerizing. A single word or phrase that we live by, isn’t it obvious at the base of our lives it all comes back to one word, one thought that sets us into motion. Whether it’s a dream, a goal or a wish.

I will hold my word tightly to my heart and open myself up this year, the sand in my hourglass is ticking down and I’m wasting my time hesitating. If I get hate, abuse or attacks in any form I’ll know that the fire I’m trying to keep ablaze has started to heat up again. My word is and will always be ‘Inspire.’ I aspire to inspire change, my high school yearbook quotes me saying ‘Dare to be different.’ None of us are the same and none of our stories will ever fully align. Even if we all stand through the same event, we all experience it differently. I’m done turning a blind eye, if the squeaky wheel gets the grease then I’ll scream until my voice goes numb, when that happens I’ll type and write until my hands bleed and my keyboard fails to work any longer.

I am a storyteller, it is not just my own story that I hold in my heart. By nature I listen, I’ve been labeled a healer, a therapist without a license. A shoulder that has been soaked in the tears of injustice and a warrior who has been to battle with just a pen and a fragile hope. I’ve cried so much that tears often fail to fall, my heart bleeds more than it breaks. I’ve given up on wrapping my heart in tape, and now this year I plan to rip away the bandages holding the festering scars inside.

People around me are suffering more than ever, if my words can gain traction. If the stories I write, the videos I produce can make a small ripple I’ll dive headfirst into the controversy. I’ve almost nothing left to lose, so I dare to dream.

I dare to step into the firing line with my head high, I may be white but I come from minorities. I stand surrounded by stories to tell of those who lost their chance to tell theirs. I hold my own tales that have been sold short, and I am tired. Carrying the weights from my world is far too much, I knew that it took a certain type of person to heal another. I never realized just how freeing it was to release those worries. Nor how crushing it was to merely be able to support others with superficial words, things don’t always get better and there isn’t always a way to win the fight. Standing against the war is the best way to walk into the dream.

Whether or not my dream will prove a blissful one or to be a bitter nightmare I do not plan to stay silent. I’ve known far to many horrors. The story of a veteran shipped away by his own family to a nursing home where they drugged him against his will for the ‘protection’ of the staff; eventually administering a dose that killed him. The story of a little girl who was raped by a good friend, who dragged in two younger siblings just to satisfy a twisted desire; who was acquited in court after a lawyer tore the youth asunder. The story of a blind man who fights every day to support himself, his daughter and his mother after he lost a lot to bring his daughter home from a dangerous situation. The story of that very daughter kidnapped by her own mother, and barely returned alive from a year of hell with a psychotic family that even the police told her father to get her out of there.

The story of a different young girl who spent her youth with friends on the internet and eventually went into an asylum coming out perhaps slightly more broken than ever before. The story of an elderly woman who was hospitalized from an incident having missed doses of medication, then forcibly kept when she ended up having further issues at their own fault. The story of a girl who had her heart broken time and time again, who to this day believes it’s her fault that the males who assaulted her had that right. Or the tale of a boy who fought with demons in his own mind, petrified of the outside. A woman who broke down and was caught on the brink, saved by a few words, a night of drinking and one bone crushing hug. A family sent into foster care destroyed and perpetually traumatized by the horrors they faced. The story of an emigrant family, properly registered, banished from the borders due to a ‘miscommunication’ and imprisoned for not having a visa where he was sent. A story of a ‘harmless vaccine’ swept under the rug.

People are stronger than they seem, but it takes a while for a heart of stone to turn to steel. I’ve been stabbed by stories, I’ve learned how true it is you can break from the gentlest of touches and I know the pain of needing to smile keeping your heart cold and your head hot. I dream a day when these stories aren’t just whispers keeping me awake at night, but tales that are inspiring change. You can run from the past or you can stand and fight, and right now I’m backed against the wall with shards of glass raining down on me. If I step back I’ll fall off the ledge so I’ll blindly charge forth. My dream will guide me through the murky uncertainty and I’ll have my supporters on the other side, the bearers of these tales who stand in anonymity behind me will give me the strength to make my dream lead us forth.

Whether just utilizing the platforms of the web to kick off or getting into more high stream media I dream to finish this year with my story having a concrete setting. Even if my name fades into the abyss if the stories get told, that's all that matters. Such is my dream, my goal and I shall make it my legacy.