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Some dreams don’t die. |
ASHES OF A FORGOTTEN DREAM
IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!! Those three words wouldn’t stop ringing in my head from the moment I woke up. Happiness cloaked itself around me like a duvet. I was ecstatic.
Today I turned fifty, my golden jubilee. I check my phone and see various messages from my kids and husband and my smile lit up brighter. They probably didn’t call because they knew I’d still be asleep.
My party was to be held tomorrow and in a few hours, my friends would swarm here trying to prep me for tomorrow. My kids would definitely join in the chaos when their flight lands later today. A happy home with four kids and a loving husband, I couldn’t be happier.
As I walked to my closet, humming a tune so familiar yet so distant, something felt off—like a quiet whisper buried in the air, waiting to be heard.
I opened my wardrobe to change. As I pull out an outfit from the rack, the hanger falls from my hands. I bend down to pick it up and notice a large brown box at the bottom of my wardrobe covered with clothes.
They don’t say curiosity killed the cat or nothing. I dust the box and sit on the edge of the bed, ready to open it.
I wish I didn’t.
First thing I saw was a blue thick manuscript with the title, “GHOSTS OF THE PAST” by Michelle Adebayo.
“Oh!” I exclaim and memories of how I struggled and stayed up to finish this manuscript, my vow to get it published and turned into a movie filled my head. It was going to be my first big project. I put it aside and picked out the old photo album next, its pages were frayed and the pictures were beginning to fade but the youthful energy in them remained. I saw my pictures from childhood to adolescent, to my short stay in the university and even when I was pregnant. That radiant and hopeful smile I once wore and tears began to pool in my eyes.
I drop it and spot an old brown book, my decades old journal and I open to a random page.
April 16, 2010
Entry 92
I finally finished my manuscript, I’ve already outlined a few companies I’ll write to tomorrow. I will keep submitting it until it gets published. I found out I was pregnant today, Charles wants me to keep it and I want to. A fresh undergraduate already pregnant, sounds like hell but I can handle it. I’ll still see my dreams through and I will still end up being a fantastic travel journalist. This is just a minor stumbling block, I will be great, that’s a spoiler.
— M
My chest tightens. I remember that version of me—fearless, determined, still untouched by life's detours.
I flip a few pages forward. A thinner, shakier handwriting greets me.
May 9, 2014
Entry 137
I still haven’t submitted “Ghosts of the Past.” I was so determined when I finished it, but then everything changed.
When I found out I was pregnant, I had to put everything on hold. I thought the publishers would still see the potential in my manuscript, but when I told them I couldn’t do a book tour because of the baby, they pulled back. They wanted someone available for interviews, events. But how could I be available when I was about to give birth and move?
The move to our new house took more time than I ever anticipated. Between settling in, raising Jessie, and adjusting to the new life, I never gave myself the space to breathe, let alone focus on “Ghosts of the Past.” It’s been a while since I wrote anything.
It feels like I let it slip through my fingers, like it faded into the background of my life. Maybe when things calm down. I just need time. Just a little more time…
M
I broke my only rule, did the one thing I vowed and sealed to myself that I’d never do, I lived my life for someone else, a man!!! Washed all my dreams and plans down the drain to propel him. I forgot about my promise.
At this realization, tears fall down my cheeks even harder. I never got my degree, top of the class for the first semester yet I never made it to the end. Charles got his degree, I am a glorified housewife, my husband is an engineer. I wasn’t successful and fulfilled, Charles was!
I lost sight of my goals. I lost my fire….and myself.
The journal dropped out of my hand with a soft thud, its pages scatter around like pieces of my life, all reminding me of what I could have been. All teasing my existence, they were all mocking me.
What happened to me?
I used to be fire. I used to dream out loud.
Now… now I plan grocery lists. I smile when I’m meant to
I host parties, I make everyone feel seen but myself.
How did I get so lost while trying to keep everything together?
Was this love or a slow erasure of me?
“Happy--mum is everything okay?” my eldest Jessie asks as she steps into the room carrying a tray filled with breakfast. Seeing her, I didn’t know if in that instance, I resented or loved her. I wondered what my life would be like, where I would be if I never got pregnant or even had an abortion.
It wasn’t her fault, I knew that. After all I FORGOT! Yet I couldn’t bring myself to exonerate her, her siblings and my husband.
I let life pass me by, that will forever be on me, my cross to carry for life. I broke my vow, I became my mother. She was broken by a man, decades later and lightning strikes twice in the same place.
As I thought of all this, I cried even harder, with a confused Jessie hugging and holding me close.
