BABYGIRL!

Remember the dreams for yourself that you’ve had for a long time? You can try to replace them with something more sensible, convince yourself they’re unrealistic or simply too difficult to pursue, or build an entirely different life because everyone around you seems to agree it’s the smarter choice. And yet, every so often, that same dream quietly finds its way back into your mind.

We forget plenty of things without even realizing. What’s last year’s favorite song? What’s the celebrity we were convinced we’d love forever? If something truly belongs in the past, it usually stays there. But then there are those dreams that seem completely indestroyable. Despite everything that has happened since you first imagined them, they still make your heart beat a little faster.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to open the little café you’ve been sketching in notebooks since middle school or write the book you’ve outlined a hundred different ways. Maybe it’s becoming a doctor, taking a gap year, moving to Paris, directing films, designing clothes, or creating something that doesn’t exist yet. Whatever it is, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about, because the moment I mentioned it, one particular dream came to mind.

Growing up has a way of making us believe that practicality and passion can’t coexist. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we may start treating our biggest dreams like guilty pleasures rather than possibilities. We tell ourselves we’ll come back to them after college, after we’ve saved enough money, after we’ve become more experienced, after life finally slows down. But life has a habit of replacing one excuse with another, and before you know it, the years have passed while the dream has remained exactly where you left it, waiting to see if you’ll ever decide it’s worth choosing after all.