Sometimes I Can't Grasp Dreams.

I fell off the wagon this week.

I haven’t had the energy to show up for myself in the ways I would like. I am at an impasse between relying on a familiar hell or a distant heaven.

I have desires, but I also have toxic traits. I want to change things, but I sometimes lack the courage to take the first step. Internalizing the lows of life has resulted in my cowardly approach. The fear of speaking about my desires out loud makes me hold my dreams close to my heart. After doing a lot of introspective work, I realized that shame stops me from showing the world my desires compared to the hand I have been dealt in life.

As an adult now, I envy my child self. Shame wasn’t a part of my vocabulary then, and my dreams didn’t seem impossible. There was a resilient flexibility to my imagination. Maybe it was naivety, but my determination to dream was out of this world.

While experiencing an overwhelming amount of burnout, dreaming was a foreign concept. Something that felt out of place and childlike in the face of present struggles. Dare I admit that the current system at play has been successful in influencing me to think my suffering is my full responsibility, and to dream of a way out is naive?

A few years ago, I would’ve allowed this thought to swallow me up. But now I know that I have the capacity to get back up after every fall. I do so without judgment because society already has that covered.

To get back up is to keep walking towards your dreams. Even if you are not sure how you will bridge the gap between point A and B. To dream in the face of suffering, take an imaginative approach—One that children perfected.

Today, I promise to keep dreaming even when it feels useless.

-Ray’nee