Promises Kept

Lately I have taken to carrying some photos with me to remind myself to follow my dreams, to not give up. The pictures are the two above, the top one is of me at age four, and the second one is my third grade school picture. These two pictures both have significant time periods attached to them, and the first one especially is how I remember myself as a child, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, there are promises we make to ourselves, the dreams we dream as children. Some of them go by the wayside, the fleeting moments of wanting to be something fanciful or just outside of the realm of a lasting dream. But then there are the other hopes and dreams that are there, the tiny seeds that start when we are children, the one or two things that never go away, but that just grow and wait for a chance to see some sun.

Recently, I was going through some of my old keepsakes, and I noticed year after year from the time I could write, on anything that asked the question-what do you want to be when you grow up? The answer was always the same: a writer.

So, when I am getting writer's block working on my novel, or when I just start to think I don't have the time, or that it will never happen for me, I pull out these pictures and look at this younger me staring back at me, expecting everything from me, waiting for me to make her dreams come true. And it changes everything, I have to write, I have to keep going.

There are a few other dreams I am keeping for her, and I can't let her down. I can't let myself down.

She has waited a long time...too long.