When I was much younger, I had poster in my room that I had found in the bookstore at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The poster featured a soaring seagull with the following Langston Hughes quote:
"Hold onto Dreams, for if dreams die, Life is a winged bird that cannot fly."
When I first saw it, I liked the quote, although I don't truly think I comprehended it in the way Mr. Hughes intended. I hung it in my room and looked at it daily, always thinking to myself that my dreams would never die. I always believed that dreams were with you forever.....a part of your being.....a part of your soul. I was too inexperienced to believe otherwise.
As I grew older and moved from college to apartment to house, I lost the poster somewhere along the way. But I could always envisioned it in my mind. Sometimes in a very haunting way. And the words, the words of Mr. Hughes, are part of my being and of course, they are part of my soul. In fact, those words, those few choice words from a poster bought years ago, could be the one reason I am here today, alive and well and still trying to hold onto my dreams.
Dreams are a funny thing. If we are surrounded by the right people, we are encouraged to follow our dreams from an early age. Others have to fight for their dreams and if the fight becomes too difficult, the simply give up. The vast majority of us fall somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in between being encouraged to follow our dreams, yet fighting for them at the same time.
I have watched my dreams flourish and grow and wither and fall stagnant. But, like the plant that that wilts in the heat and then springs to life with the first rain, I always seem to bounce back. Maybe not as strong as I was in the beginning of my life, but I do bounce back with gusto. And through all the trauma, all the pain, I have still managed to hang onto those dreams. Oh, I may just be hanging onto a corner of them sometimes, but I still have a strong grip and for the dream crushers.....well I am quite the fighter and I will not and cannot let them get me down.
So, as I go through my stuff, purging and selling it on eBay, I am reminded of who I am and who I was and what I have become. I also know what I can be and that is the hardest part of all I think....to realize that there is so much life out there worth living and so many dreams worth having and knowing that none of it is an easy
task.
I am my own dream maker and what I do with those dreams is entirely up to me.
And as I make all of my dreams finally become a reality, purging stuff from my life isn't a bad way to go. I can see the mistakes I've made and the accomplishments I've had and all in all, it sort of evens out. I am in control of my destiny and I will not let my dreams die!
To view my never-ending project of "Selling My Life on eBay" go to my eBay store at
http://stores.ebay.com/Mabelmaes-attic.html. Or you can just search for me under Mabelmaesattic. Just remember, you never know what you're going to find!
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