Tea Time Tuesday: A Dream Converted

Dreams change as life does. There’s beauty in that too.

Happy Tea Time Tuesday Black Girls!

Today, we’re SPEAKing about mourning and releasing what we thought would be our realities, so that we can be grateful for what truly is. Poet, Langston Hughes, probed us with the question, “What happens to a dream deferred?” Sometimes we prolong pursuing our dreams because life gets in the way. But, other times, we shelf them because we realize we simply no longer desire them once we’re honest with ourselves. What happens to a dream converted?

It’s graduation season for many baby Black Girls and for some of us who just completed a long sought after dream, which means a time of excitement and new chapters. It’s also a reminder for some of us of when we did graduate a few years (read decades) ago.

I remember graduating from high school and FAMU around this time and being focused on becoming an author and a corporate attorney. Neither happened the way I thought they would. I definitely still write, but not in the way I expected. And, I decided I didn’t desire to be an attorney early enough to change courses. I’m at the stage now, where I’m learning to accept all that I really am instead of what I imagined I’d be.

I’m not the weight I want to be, but I feel and look damn good if I do say so myself. I’m not a famous, touring author…yet, but I finally published my first children’s book of a series and I’m working on the rest. I didn’t pursue law, but I fell in love with education without even looking in that direction intentionally. I don’t own a school…yet, but I’m proud to teach my own children in the way they learn and impact other families through educational consulting. I’m not a famous actress in Hollywood, but I created my own stage and became a playwright that tells the stories of the unheard. I didn’t become another Zora Neale Hurston….yet, but I manifested a movement that empowers other Black women through my words and stories. Black Girl Speaks hasn’t had the global impact I envisioned it would, but the sanctuary I’ve created has helped to heal, uplift, and empower other Black Girls in ways I never anticipated. I don’t have the tangible sister circle near me I’d hoped for, but I have a tribe of women that will pray for me, fight with me, and stand beside me when needed, and they know I’d do the same. I don’t have the marriages I saw, but I have the marriage I desire and we’re consistently working towards being better together for ourselves and each other. I haven’t reached all of my fitness goals, but I am physically healthy and maintaining my mental and emotional health actively every day. I’m not who I thought I’d be, but I’m loving this version of me more and more. The truth and beauty are in the “buts” of life.