pray for it. then buckle your seat belt.

lately i've been thinking a lot about dreams. not the ones where you fall asleep and wake up to find you've gone to school naked or that you're being chased by a bad guy and you can't run or scream. i'm talking about the dreams you create as a child when you still believed what all the grown ups said - that you really could do anything you put your mind to. remember the days when we wanted to be astronauts? or dolphin trainers? maybe fashion designers? it all seemed so simple, so possible. i loved playing the game LIFE. at the draw of a few cards you could be a harvard-educated marine biologist with 2.5 kids, own a mansion and win the nobel peace prize well before retirement age. i think at the time i truly believed that someday it would all come true. i thought that life is happy and easy and sweet, that the cards i'd draw would all be good and lead to a blissful, successful, happily ever after.

the point of this is not to rant about how WRONG i was and that at some point i got a frickin' clue as to how the world really works. though i was young, innocent, and so wonderfully ignorant, i actually think i was on to something. at what point did we stop believing that extraordinary things happen to ordinary people? when did "when i grow up i want to be..." stop being the thesis of our lives? now we're all grown up, paying the mortgage, filing our taxes, being the responsible, contributing members of society we were raised to be. i'm just wondering where the awesome ability to dream got lost in all that sensible growing up we did.

the truth be told, i don't really care if i ever win a nobel peace prize, and i certainly could do without a mansion. but when i'm feeling really brave and i set my skepticism aside, my dreams meekly peek themselves back into view. they look like long-lost friends who i knew once-upon-a-time. they stand in front of me with excitement, and yet they're a little nervous that fear of getting my hopes up will send them packing once again.

tonight i spent some time in the ER of my work with my mom who hurt her wrist. i was discussing this whole setting skepticism aside thing and allowing myself to imagine that sometimes dreams really do come true. she happens to be a very huge fan of my dreams, and she's a bit of a dreamer herself. my mom is also a huge believer that we worship an amazingly powerful God who can make any dream come true if He wants to. her words "pray for it, then buckle your seat belt" sent electricity over my skin, resuscitating my dreams as if they'd been lying dead on the table next to us. i instantly felt alive with hope that dreams really do come true, and not just anyone's generic, house and 2 kids kinda dreams, but MY specific, detailed, there-for-a-reason, with-God-all-things-are-possible dreams. 

let's just say my seat belt is fastened.

if i have a bat in the cave, at least you can't see it

writing for me is and always has been an outlet.  i'm a bit shy in my own ways and i'm not much of a spotlight kinda girl.  but when you write it's like you get to talk to a room full of people without them staring at you while you do it.  you can say what you're really feeling without the sweaty armpits and the wondering if you have a bat in the cave that the front row is watching flap back and forth. in 5th grade my teacher mr. keairnes wrote in the margins of all my short stories, poems, book reports... telling how much he loved my "writing".  when i recently ran into him a few weeks ago he said "ya know melody, i always thought you'd grow up to be a writer".  i couldn't help but feel like i'd let him down a little bit, and i couldn't help but agree with him.

so that brings me to today.  my little sister katie said she'd been blogging and that it was a neat way to share herself to... who knows who... that she was finding it felt good to document various thoughts, feelings, small and seemingly insignificant happenings of every day life.  my older sister is a gifted writer, as in, she has things published and has been paid to write stuff for legit magazines and publications.  so it's no surprise that every time i read her blog i feel like my mouth is hanging open in awe of the combinations of words her mind puts together... little intimidating to think about when generating a blog of my own. nonetheless, here i am. I won't feel bad if your mouth doesn't hang open when you read, unless maybe it means you've fallen asleep and now there's a little puddle of drool about to spill out and over your lip cuz, well that's just gross. go to bed.