Dreams

When I was nine-years-old, I knew I wanted to be a writer.  Any time I had a free moment, I spent it writing stories, poetry, drawing pictures, and thinking about a more complex story.  It was the only thing that fed my self-esteem and kept me from self-destructing.

I often think I had an angel on my shoulder whispering loud enough to drown out the shouting of my parents in the next room.  Many people have had difficult childhoods.  I wasn't alone.  I only had to look to the neighborhood kids to know my life wasn't unique.  It was the way things were back then.  Children were given spankings in school.  Mom and dad smacking you around was never considered abuse.  Never was it considered going too far.  

More than anything, it was the words that hurt.  The words you never forget.  I've long forgotten the pain of beatings, pulled hair, slaps across my face.  But the words?  They hang at the edge of my heart, weighing down the edges, keeping me from moving forward in life.  

Have you ever been told you were never good enough?  You would never amount to anything?  Were you ever told this by the people you thought would be your biggest fans?  Hearing it once may not have hit its mark, but hearing it every day?  Now that was a message carved into the bones that hold you up every day. 

Yet deep down inside, I knew I was more.  I wasn't going to let them keep me down.  At eighteen, I moved over 2600 miles away and started my life over.  Was it a great start?  No, in retrospect.  I made many mistakes, floundered like a guppy on dry land.  I finally had no constraints--so I guess you could categorize me as a little more than wild.  The pendulum swung.  And I enjoyed every minute of it.  It taught me what I was made of;  what I believed in.  What I would stand for and what I would stand against.  It was a beautiful time.

I married, had a daughter and two sons, divorced, and got a job.  I had to provide for those three little rascals.  All I kept thinking is that I wanted to be a better mother to my kids than my mother was to me.  That's it.  That was my single-minded, laser-beam focused goal.  I didn't set my mind on meeting another man who would whisk me off my feet, love me forever and make all of my dreams come true.

Instead, I forged a team.  Me and my kids became one tight-knit unit.  To this day, my kids are each others best friends.  I'm so very proud of who they became in their own rights.  They are amazing young adults, each solidly on their way to making a difference in this world.  

Better mother - check.  Goal accomplished.  Now what?

Ahh...back to daydreaming of kingdoms, villains, and stories still left untold.  Well, not any more.  With computer in hand, classes at my back, I'm forging onto write the stories long held in my imagination.
  I welcome you to cast along side me on this journey.  

Aedyn Brooks