Love Letters to the Underloved

To Those Whose Dreams Don’t Take Flight Dear Friend, Sorry about that dream of yours, the one you gathered up with Queen Anne’s Lace and tossed into your chipped-up wagon since childhood. I know you planned to hold that dream and mold it into beautiful, but now it sits shriveled and useless.

See, life got in the way of your dream.

Addictions raged. The ring fit the finger of another girl. The baby went to the couple who already had three. Your arm gave out when the scout showed up. School became another unfinished item on life’s to do list. The job found itself in the hands of someone more qualified. Money never walked into your house. Even now, the cursor sits as a blinking reminder that your words don’t resonate with others.

Failure lingers, taunting you from the dark, and you hadn’t counted on failure; it was never penciled in. Nope, girl, you had dreams.

I had dreams too. Dreams I held too close to my chest. Dreams I suffocated. Dreams I tried to force to fly.

But I tell you this, my dreaming friend, sometimes regardless of our actions, dreams don’t take flight, and when this happens, you may want to hold onto anything your desperate fingers can grab, but don’t. Resist the urge.

Take some time, take months, or years if you need it, but find a way to brush off the dirt, give those dreams a pat on the back, and send them on their way. See, sometimes the dreams we want to fly need to crash so we can make room for new dreams. We need to mourn lost hopes, and then quit trying to resuscitate them.

Will this be easy? Hell, no. Think of leaving your hand on a hot stove. It burns, and sometimes scars, but it’s time to clear the runway. New adventures line our paths, and it’s time to give something else a chance to fly. Go for it, dreamer. I believe in you.

Always, Amy [22]